Strangers in Paradise: The Fifth Wheel
by ofperkins
Summary: Five months after finding their mysterious host, four friends are thrown into another strange world, this one far more dangerous than anything they have faced before, with only their wits and a small green book to arm them. Spoilers, moderate suggestive themes and mild violence.
1. Prologue

_If you've just joined us, this is the story so far..._

_After finding an ancient book buried in a dune in the desert compound where they lived, Rachel and Jordan found themselves stranded on a mysterious island, far removed from anywhere they knew. Through a combination of quick wits, lots of time and a few lucky guesses, they began to unravel the secrets of the island, but just as they had begun to do so, even learning the island's name, they were thrust through the pages of another book and landed somewhere different again._

_Through more use of their brains and sheer luck, they fought their way back to the island Myst, only to discover that they had been joined on the island by Maddy, a close friend of theirs. Again, a book puled all three of them this time through to another world, in which Rachel had an unfortunate encounter with a large rock and was knocked out cold, leaving Jordan and Maddy to bring themselves and her back to Myst, only to find Brittany, another friend._

_All four of them travelled again to yet another world, this one a sickening experience for Rachel. After that, one final world awaited them beyond the pages of yet another book, and it was here that Maddy had a serious accident, but luckily sustained only a broken arm._

_After seeing what they saw in the various different worlds, one thing led to another and they met Atrus, the owner of the island who was imprisoned on yet another different world. On his direction and persuasion, they freed him from his prison, and he told them that unfortunately, he could not get them home, but he could make Myst as close to a home as he could for them._

_That, however, was not the end for Rachel, Jordan, Maddy and Brittany. Atrus had more to ask of them, something that perhaps would be far more dangerous than what had happened to them before. It's a tale of its own..._

* * *

**Prologue**

Rachel awoke with a start. It was dark in the cabin. She looked at her watch. It was half past midnight. She could have sworn she heard something move outside. Picking up a fire-marble from the basket that Atrus had left, she got quietly out of her sleeping bag and went outside.

She shook the marble in her hand gently and it glowed with a blue light. What she could see of the island looked very ghostly in the light of the marble. It was a cloudy night and there was no moon, so the only light came from the marble and the distant glow of the library chandelier.

Rachel headed up towards the library. There was someone standing in the doorway, casting a long shadow over the grass and the stone basin containing the model ship. The figure seemed to see Rachel approach and stepped out onto the grass. As Rachel approached the figure, the blue light from the marble illuminated his features.

Five months, they'd been on this island, and they'd only seen Atrus here a few times. Whether or not he worked late into the night, they didn't know, but he wasn't tonight, as he was standing in the doorway of the library, looking exhausted but slightly happier than the last time Rachel had seen him.

"Good morning," she said to him.

"It certainly is," he replied. "Come inside, I need to talk to you."

They went inside the library, which was as light and warm as it always was. Atrus didn't sit down, but instead went over to the burnt shelf where the red book holding his son Sirrus had sat, only five months ago. After a minute, he spoke.

"First of all, I owe you an apology. I never thanked you properly for releasing me from that prison, but I was distracted by my writing."

"Forget it, Atrus," replied Rachel.

"And," Atrus pressed on, "I know that this library doesn't strike you as the best of rewards for what you went through. I'm sorry about that as well. But I think that perhaps I will soon be able to rectify that."

Rachel looked up at him. His tired face showed no sign of sarcasm.

"But I am afraid," he continued, "that I must ask you and your friends to help me again."

"Well, of course, Atrus," said Rachel. "You have been very hospitable."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," replied Atrus. "I've been a perfectly rude host. I gave you four sleeping bags, a supply of fire-marbles and an orchard. I've barely even spoken to you."

Rachel did not argue; she knew that he was right.

"I can tell," Atrus proceeded, "that you still don't know exactly what is going on here. Sit down. I am going to tell you everything."

* * *

_Atrus' story..._

It begins, I suppose, a little over thirty years ago. I was only fourteen, living with my grandmother in an abandoned desert compound near an old volcano. We didn't have luxuries, but she made life comfortable for us by trading her art with passing traders.

I had lived here all my life. On this day, when I was only fourteen, a man showed up, seemingly out of nowhere. He called himself Gehn. He was my father. He took me with him, deep down through a network of tunnels to a massive underground city, which he called D'ni. I had heard stories about it from grandmother, of course, but I believed it destroyed. Yet here it was, abandoned but intact.

I spent three years there with my father. He taught me the lost Art of writing these books, these linking books that brought you here. A large descriptive book, such as those that took you to Channelwood and Stoneship, is a word-for-word description of the world, or Age, that it links to. The books that brought you back here were slightly different, in that they were linking books, essentially working substitutes for the descriptive book.

It was many years before I discovered the truth about my father – that his cause was not noble, as he claimed, but insane, and so was he. I tried to run away, but he caught me and imprisoned me in that room that you saved me from five months ago, leaving me a descriptive book, a linking book back to that room, a pen and a pot of ink. The descriptive book led me to his Fifth Age, a world called Riven, that, like all his others, he ruled over like a god.

On Riven, I met Catherine, and she and I wrote corrections into Riven to stabilise the fatal flaws in the Age. She and my grandmother, who had followed me here, wrote an Age for us all to escape to once we had dealt with my father, an Age which she called Myst, and where we are now.

Catherine and I confronted Gehn on Riven. Catherine linked out to Myst, and I linked out after jumping into a fissure that had opened, a fissure that was filled with endless stars. The Star Fissure is a very strange thing, and although my intent was to destroy the book as it fell down there, I knew that that would not happen.

Catherine and I married, and had two sons. The four of us and grandmother lived here for almost thirty years, happily. But then something went horribly wrong. Grandmother, after visiting one of Catherine's Ages, caught a horrible sickness and died. Catherine felt responsible for her death, and I stifled the pain of my loss and buried myself in work. I regret it, but that seemed like the best idea at the time. Sirrus and Achenar, but Sirrus especially, began to feel neglected, and turned to plundering my Ages as sport whilst my back was turned. They tricked Catherine into going to Riven, where she was captured by Gehn, and they trapped me in D'ni.

I thought that all was lost, save for the corrections I could write into Riven, and then you appeared and released me. I knew how it happened, of course; you had surely found my lost Myst linking book. You came here; you met Sirrus and Achenar, trapped in the two books in the library, but you trusted me, and for that I can never truly repay you.

* * *

"And yet," Atrus continued, "I must ask more of you. This will be dangerous, and I will understand completely if you don't want to do it, but I beg you, give it good thought, because you might be my only hope..." He trailed off.

After waiting for a minute, Rachel prompted him. "So what is it that you want us to do?"

Atrus didn't reply for a while, instead just staring off into the distance towards the clock tower. Eventually, he replied, "Come and see me on D'ni later today. All four of you. I'll explain then."

He got to his feet and walked over to the fireplace. He crawled inside and closed the door. A second later, it rotated sharply, and then after another second it rotated back, empty.

* * *

Four pairs of feet clicked into existence on the cool marble floor of the huge room. It was exactly as they had left it five months ago, except that Atrus was not writing, he was reading. He looked up as the linked in and beckoned them over to the desk.

"What I'm about to ask you to do is dangerous, there's no doubt about that. I'll understand perfectly if you don't want to do it."

Rachel, Jordan, Maddy and Brittany nodded mutely.

Atrus leaned forward over the desk. "My father surely captured Catherine when Sirrus and Achenar sent her to Riven. I want you four, if you're willing, to go to Riven, capture Gehn and free Catherine."

Seeing their slightly confused expressions, he continued. "I would go myself, but the Age is too unstable. I can only leave this desk for more than six hours or so before the Age starts to fall apart again.

"So," he concluded, "will you do it?"

He had expected them to want to consider this for a little longer, but their answer was immediate and unanimous. "Yes, we will."

A wide smile split Atrus' tired features. "Oh, I can't thank you enough. Here," he said, "take these – you'll need them." He handed them each a largish cloth bag. Rachel opened hers curiously. There were a number of things in there, but the most prominent was what looked like a fresh set of clothes.

"Go back to Myst, get yourselves cleaned up. I've given you some supplies there. Pack some food from Antares, and some fresh water. There's some food and water on Riven, of course, but pack some all the same. Rest up, and be back here first thing tomorrow."

* * *

Back in the warmth of the cabin, the four of them opened the bags that Atrus had given them. Each one contained the same thing – a set of clothes and sturdy-looking boots, and a small satchel. Each satchel was empty except for a small pouch of fire-marbles and an empty flask.

They had never told Atrus what size clothes they wore, but he was obviously a good guesser, because the clothes fit them perfectly. After paying a visit to Antares and stocking up on food and water, they went back to Myst for what they would soon discover would be the last time.

* * *

"Well, there's a great deal of history that you should know... but, I'm afraid that I must continue my writing."

Atrus pulled a small red book out from his jacket pocket and handed it to Jordan. "Here... most of what you'll need to know is in there. Keep it well hidden."

He reached under the desk and pulled out a small dark green book. He examined it for a minute. "For reasons you'll discover, I can't send you to Riven with a way out." Rachel looked at the others in alarm. "But I can give you this." He passed the book to Rachel. "It appears to be a linking book, back here to D'ni... but it's actually a one-man prison. You'll need it, I'm afraid, to capture Gehn."

He settled back into his seat and picked up his pen. "Once you've found Catherine, signal me. I'll come with a linking book to bring us back." He wrote a few more lines, then put the pen down, closed the book and opened it to the last page. He examined the page for a minute, seeming to be deciding whether or not to say something, then he did.

"There's also a chance... if this all goes well... that..."

He broke off. Rachel leant forward slightly.

"That... I might be able to... get you back... to the place that you came from."

All four of them looked at Atrus. He was still looking at the book, but he was deathly serious. He looked up at them, then turned the book around and placed it on the desk in front of them.

The panel on the right page was not showing an image of the place where it linked to. Perhaps it should have, but it was swirling with static, like a badly tuned television set. Every now and again, a fleeting glimpse of something showed through the static, but it was quickly swept away by the static.

Rachel looked at Atrus. He was looking down at the book, a very indeterminate look in his eyes. It was a moment before she realised that he was lonely. He had lost everything, and he couldn't go on living like that...

Hand touched paper, and the great room gave a jolt, before Rachel stepped forward into the book and spinning darkness engulfed her...


	2. Caged

**1 – Caged**

A blast of sea air hit Rachel square in the face, making her stagger slightly. She was standing in a small capsule, enclosed on all sides except one. The capsule was not going to be big enough for more than two to fit comfortably, so she decided to get out. Before she could, however, the floor of the capsule shuddered and sank down about an inch.

As she was getting her balance back, two things happened at exactly the same time. First, Jordan linked in right next to her, and second, with a loud crash a barred gate slid up from the base of the capsule, closing off the only exit.

"Oh, that's not good."

It got worse. Right on cue, Maddy linked in, followed by Brittany. All four of them were being crushed against the walls and each other, and every time they tried to move this merited foul comments from somebody.

"How are we supposed to get out of this? We could – ow, Jordan, that was my foot!"

"Sorry Brittany, I was trying to get my leg out from behind Maddy's knee. Ouch! Mind where you're putting your elbow!"

"Sorry, I'm trying to get circulation back, I can't feel it at all. Hey! Who was that? There's a time and a place for everything, you know."

"I can't help it, Brittany, in case you hadn't noticed there's no room in here!"

"Shut up, you idiots!" hissed Rachel. "Someone's coming!"

They fell silent. Over the quiet lapping of water and the sea breeze, slow footsteps were approaching from the right. A man came into view. He was dressed in a white guards tunic which looked about half a dozen sizes too big for him. He looked incredibly bored. He glanced down at a lever set into the ground next to him, then looked around for a minute, looking everywhere except into the cage. Finally, he looked into the cage and right at the four of them. He started and peered in with surprise. It was obvious that when he had come to inspect the link-in cage that the last thing he had expected to see was that someone had linked in.

He started babbling excitedly in a strange language. With great difficulty Rachel looked quizzically at the others. Maddy and Jordan were looking very confused, but Brittany seemed to be actually listening to him. Seeing the others looking at her, she explained quietly.

"I think he's speaking Rivenese, the native language. Atrus taught me a little bit of Rivenese before we left. I think he's essentially just surprised."

Suddenly, the demeanour of the man changed. He seemed to have remembered something, and started speaking slowly and stumblingly in another language. Again, everyone looked at Brittany.

"Now he's speaking D'ni, but not very well. I can barely understand him, but he's saying something about a book."

The man was becoming impatient. He moved towards the cage and started speaking Rivenese again, making hand gestures and waving his hand at Rachel.

"Still something about a book," muttered Brittany.

Finally, the man lost patience. He came right up to the cage, reached through the bars and wrenched the small green book from Rachel's grasp before any of them could do anything about it. Retreating to a safe distance, he flipped open the book straight to the last page. He smiled, and looked up at Rachel. Before he could do anything else, however, he seemed to be struck by something. He snapped the book shut and one of his hands flew to the back of his neck. He staggered for a moment, then stumbled and fell to the ground, clearly either unconscious or dead. The book fell from his hand and lay open just out of Rachel's reach.

Soft running footsteps came from the right, and another man came into view. He was dressed as a guerilla, completely in red and black. His nose and mouth were masked; in fact, the only exposed area of his skin was around his eyes. He seized the guard by the feet and dragged him away, then returned. He darted for the book lying on the ground, picked it up, glanced once at it, glanced once at the four in the cage, then went over to the lever. He pushed it sharply. A click issued from an unseen mechanism, and the barred gate on the cage began to slowly lower into the ground. Placing the book on the ground, he then proceeded to place a small knife-like object at the base of the lever and hammer it in. Picking up the book again, he turned and ran from sight.

It seemed that the gate took forever to lower to the ground and let them out, but eventually all four of them fell out of the cage, collapsing onto the ground because of cramps in their legs. Rachel looked around frantically. Next to them was a long strip of metal plating on the ground, and at the far end of that was a device that looked a bit like an ice-cream cone. On one side of the cage was a sheer rock wall, and off to the right was a ragged set of stairs cut into the rock. Sitting on top of the large plateau was a colossal golden dome. The rebel was nowhere to be seen.

As soon as she regained use of her legs, Rachel leapt to her feet and ran over to the stairs. When she got to the top of them she looked around frantically. To the left was a small room cut into the rock. To the right was a bridge leading over to a smaller island, and straight ahead was another set of stairs leading down to a small empty plateau with a locked gate leading off it.

She returned to the cage where Jordan, Maddy and Brittany were sitting looking rather dejected.

"What an encouraging start," said Brittany. "We've been here..." she looked at her watch, "all of five minutes, and we've already lost the only weapon Atrus gave us."

Nobody argued with her. They knew she was right.

* * *

Surely, they all thought, getting into the golden dome would be a good start to their explorations. Easier said than done, it turned out. The only apparent way into the dome was through the room in the rock, but the entrance leading off that was barred by another gate. They tried for a good half an hour by Brittany's watch (which was the only one still working) to shift the gate, but with no success. Whatever the gate was made out of, it was strong, despite the fact that it looked like it would fall down if they shoulder barged it with a long enough run-up (they'd tried that, and it didn't work). Eventually they decided to give up for a bit and examine the room a bit more, and it wasn't exactly a boring room, either.

It was perfectly pentagonal, with entrances in two of the walls and the other three covered in the same incomprehensible script that was in the books. Five huge pillars stretched from the floor to the ceiling, which was patterned with stars and with a decoration that looked almost exactly like a pen nib. Each pillar was adorned with a large beetle.

Maddy went over to one of the pillars. The beetle had a small tab under it. She pulled on it. With a rustling click the beetle spread its wings, revealing a small eyepiece behind it. Looking into it, she saw an image of a man sitting at a desk writing in a book. Where the pen touched the paper a stream of images flowed out from the pen tip – people, animals, plants, houses, everything.

"Come have a look at this," she called to the others, who were examining one of the walls containing the writing. They came over and examined the beetle as well, and Maddy went off to look at the other beetles. Each one had a different image behind it – a huge hand holding an open book, with many people around it worshipping it; a sort of feudal pyramid with the same man at the top; the same man again rising from the ground into an open book in the sky, with people worshipping him all around; and finally the same man again, standing over another man and a book falling down into a great expanse of stars.

Rachel took one look at this last one and knew what it was immediately.

"This is Gehn's twisted depiction of what happened thirty years ago, when Atrus trapped him here. He's made it look like he banished Atrus down that Fissure or something."

* * *

They left the room and regrouped in the small antechamber outside.

"So what do we know?" Brittany was one of those people who always had to have a clear idea of what was happening.

"We know that we don't know anything," replied Jordan, and nobody argued.

"We lost the book," he continued, "and we need to get that back or we're screwed. We still have the journal that Atrus gave us, but other than that we have nothing except our supplies, and I see that you three have managed to leave your satchels on Myst."

And so they had. It appeared that the four of them would now have to survive on Jordan's rations alone, and then they'd have to find local food and water.

Maddy sank back against the wall next to the door. A ringing clunk resounded around the room, and then the grating of rock against rock echoed through the antechamber. The large room was rotating, and even as the four of them watched, astounded, a small chamber containing a tiny viewing hole in the wall. When Maddy looked through the hole, she saw one of the beetles from the room.

Looking down at the wall, Maddy saw that she had leant against a large brass button in the wall. She pressed it again, and the room rotated again, showing another viewing hole. She pressed it a third time, and an entrance appeared leading back into the room. The other entrance had aligned with a different way out, but it was also blocked by a gate. When Rachel stepped into the room to examine the gate, it proved to be no less sturdy than the other gate.

"Are we ever going to get anywhere here?" asked Rachel to anyone who would listen, but nobody was. Before she knew where she was, the room was rotating underneath her feet. The entrance that they had come in by swung away, as did the new entrance. After a few seconds, two new entrances had aligned with the room.

Cautiously, Rachel walked out one of them. It led into a cave cut through the rock, and ended at a solidly locked gate, which she recognised as the one that led off the lower plateau. She still couldn't move it.

As she walked back up the roughly-cut stairs to the room, though, she heard the grinding of the great gears springing back into action. It was all she could do to run back and jump back into the room as the entrances rotated again and aligned themselves back the way they were at the start. Hurriedly, Rachel relayed what she had seen to the others. Jordan rummaged around in his satchel, pulled out his journal and drew a diagram of the room, marking the five entrances that they now knew must exist on it.

"All right, so we are at entrance one," he explained, pointing at one of the numbers on the diagram, "and the entrance leading over to the dome is entrance three. Entrance four is the other barred entrance, which just looked like a small room. Entrance five is behind the lower gate, and entrance two is somewhere in between. Rach, go back inside."

Rachel went inside the room, and the gears rumbled into life again, rotating the entrances again to align with 2 and 4. 4 was still covered by the heavy gate, but 2 was open, and she walked down the small cave. It was a dead end, but it contained what looked like a steam control. She turned it, but nothing happened, so she put it back the way it was and headed back towards the room.

As she was about to enter the room, she noticed that there was a small switch set into the wall next to the door. When she pushed it, a low clattering noise came from inside the room. After a few seconds it stopped. Poking her head into the room, she saw that the gate covering entrance 4 had raised, allowing her into the small room beyond.

In here there was another switch on the side of the door. Considering what the other one had done, Rachel decided that it was a safe bet that this would do the same thing, and pushed it up. The same clattering came from inside the room again.

Stepping back into the room, Rachel tapped on the wall that she worked out the others were behind. Immediately, the room started to rotate again, and after two rotations entrances 1 and 4 were aligned. Rachel stepped back out into the small antechamber.

"Well, I think I've sorted it out. Keep going."

Maddy pressed the button again, and then once more. When the entrances aligned, they could see that the switch that Rachel had pushed at entrance four was having the desired effect – the gate over entrance three had raised, and they could cross over to the dome.

* * *

The interior of the dome, for all the effort it took to get in, was thoroughly underwhelming. A few steel catwalks led around the perimeter of the huge pool of what looked like water that was enclosed by the dome. The four of them were careful as they walked around the dome; the catwalk was a long way above the pool of water, and it would be a painful drop if any of them fell in.

They made their careful way down a small flight of stairs to a lower catwalk and another entrance in the wall of the dome. This led out to a small walkway leading around the side of the dome, just over the water. Still walking on eggshells, the four of them made their way along the metal catwalk and around the dome. It wasn't long before they came across a path jutting out a short way over the ocean, leading to a steam pipe. Maddy, always the brave one even with a just-healed arm, went out and turned it, making steam hiss along the pipe towards another bridge stretching between the dome and another island.

"This place is huge!" she said to the others when she got back to the catwalk. This island is big enough, and there's more islands. We're going to be here for a long while."

"Well, that book has to be here somewhere," replied Jordan. "Surely we just have to look hard enough."

He played a good bluff of his own confidence, but cracked under the look that Rachel proceeded to give him.

"All right, fine. We haven't even seen half this world yet. It's called Riven, and with a name like that there could be bits of it strewn everywhere. Like it was once one big island, and it was riven apart. And it's not just the book that we have to find. We have to find Gehn, we have to find Catherine, and we have to find a way to signal Atrus. It's not going to be fun, and it's not going to be easy. We have to keep our heads down. That rebel had a gun; we could easily get killed here. We have to be careful."

"Rather ironic, really," replied Brittany. "Five months ago we were desperately seeking human contact, and now we're desperately avoiding it."


	3. Stomach

**2 – Stomach**

_{Jordan's journal, 30-Nov}_

_Well here we are, first journal entry on Riven, and it's not exactly going brilliantly. We lost our only weapon after five minutes, and despite having wandered around this island all day we can still find nothing of particular interest, and certainly no way to get to any of the other islands. Oh yes, we can see bridges and some tracks of some description, but we can't get to them. We're essentially stranded on this island until we can get to them, and even then we have a huge area to search to find the book, then Gehn, and then Catherine. I think that we might be here for a while._

* * *

_{Brittany's journal, 30-11}_

_I don't know. We're doing our best with what we have and what we can find, but Jordan's rations are not exactly going to cater to all four of us for more than a week. These pocket-sized journals that Atrus gave us are good, and it means that we've all at least got our journals, and his, but still... we haven't even taken Atrus' old journal out to look at yet. We've been too busy looking for something altogether more important._

* * *

_{Rachel's journal, 30th November}_

_It's quiet here, and oddly charming. (Sounds a bit like a guy I knew once.) But still, we have a book to find, and this place is a lot more dangerous than it looks, and a lot more complicated than it looks as well. And it looks pretty complicated._

* * *

_{Maddy's journal, 11/30}_

_Come on guys, have a bit of optimism about this. Okay, so I'm not exactly optimistic myself, but somebody's got to do the pessimism whilst you lot are optimistic._

_I admit that I kinda like it here. It's bigger than Myst, which makes it a lot more interesting, and there is some pretty strange looking stuff on some of these islands that I can see. Still, there's something strange going on. There was something about that guard that we saw when we arrived that was strange. I don't know what it was, but... I'll have to think about it more._

* * *

_{Atrus' journal, 30.11.17}_

_After bringing Riven back to a stable condition, I visited Myst today to clear up the cabin, and discovered three of my satchels waiting there. I certainly hope that the four of them can survive on Riven on only one person's rations._

_I have long realised that the destruction of Riven is inevitable, and that I can only delay it for a time. The island is becoming more and more volatile, and it's all I can do to hold back major destruction. I expect that some minor to moderate tremors will be experienced there, and there's nothing I can do about that except keep them as small as possible. I pray that my friends will hurry, as I will not be able to hold back total destruction for more than another six weeks._

* * *

The softly glowing light of Brittany's watch proclaimed that it was eleven thirty, and still Maddy could not sleep. The others had dozed off at least an hour ago, but considering they were sleeping on the ridiculously uncomfortable rock outside the now defunct link cage, she was at a loss to see how they managed to.

It was dead silent here, except for the almost inaudible sigh of the sea breeze. It was last quarter moon, so it wasn't exactly bright, but light enough to make out the surroundings.

The tiniest humming noise pierced the air. Instinctively, Maddy looked at the link cage, but nobody was linking in. Then she looked out at one of the other islands, and she saw a small light winding its way along the rickety-looking tracks that they had seen before. The light was attached to a small vehicle – a tram of some kind – and it was heading for this island. It disappeared behind the small island across the short bridge from this one, and the humming stopped. Maddy froze. Straining her ears again, she heard a distant clattering noise, like a door opening, and then soft footsteps. A dim light started to shine from the tunnel leading down into the rock, bobbing back and forth like a lantern would.

Maddy bent over the other three, shaking them awake. "Wake up!" she hissed. "We have to move!"

"Why?" groaned Rachel as she sat up. She didn't like being disturbed at night.

"Someone's coming!" replied Maddy, and pointed at the tunnel, where already they could see someone emerging from it. Abandoning Jordan's satchel on the ground, they sprang up and darted over to the huge cone-like telescope (they still hadn't worked out why it was pointing at the ground) and crouched behind it. The figure had stopped on the bridge, and by the combined light of his lantern and the moon they could see that he was dressed in the same sort of white uniform as the guard they had seen at the start. It wasn't the same guard, though – this man was taller and the uniform fit him better, although it still looked a bit too big. He was peering down at the place where the four of them had been just a few seconds ago, a slight frown on his face. He crossed the bridge, then came down the stairs into the clearing. When he got to the place where the four of them had been, he bent down and picked something up off the ground. He examined it for a second, then looked around carefully. The four of them ducked down behind the telescope and held their breaths.

Miraculously, or so it seemed, the man did not see them. He turned and walked back up the stairs, then into the rotating room and along the bridge to the dome. He was in the dome for a minute or two before he turned around and went back into the rotating room, then across the bridge back to the other island. A minute or so later, the humming started up again and the tram shot back along the rails to the other island. All four of them breathed a sigh of relief.

"What did he pick up off the ground?" asked Maddy. Rachel already had a fair idea of what it was, and she didn't like it if she was right.

As it turned out, she was right. When the four of them got back out from behind the telescope, they discovered that Jordan's satchel was gone.

"That's not good," commented Maddy, almost casually, when they discovered this.

By an almost miraculous stroke of luck, Atrus' journal had fallen out of the satchel and was lying on the ground. Jordan picked it up and dusted it off.

"Well, this is all we've got left," he said, and put it in his pocket.

Brittany's watch beeped quietly, announcing midnight.

"That wasn't a good day," she said.

* * *

Waking with a start, Atrus almost fell off his chair when he realised what time it was. He had only meant to sleep for a few hours, but he had overslept badly. It was almost four in the morning, although it wasn't exactly easy to tell that when he was entombed in this tiny room. He could have gone to Myst to write, but he really didn't think he could face that.

Sitting up, suddenly alert, he opened the book to the last page and examined the swirling static of the panel. Already it was moving faster – his nap had cost him a lot. Seizing his pen, he turned back to where he was writing before and began to write furiously.

* * *

None of them slept any more after that. They sat awake, still sheltered behind the telescope, until the first rays of dawn pieced the twilight.

Rachel's stomach made a protesting noise, which was normal.

Maddy's stomach did as well, which was even more normal.

A rock bounced off Brittany's head, which was not.

"Hey, who threw a rock at me?" protested Brittany. The other three looked at each other and shrugged.

A rock bounced off Rachel's head.

"Where did that come from?" she exclaimed, massaging the small lump where it had hit.

And then the ground seemed to answer her question.

* * *

Entombed in the small room that had once been Gehn's office, Catherine looked out over the seemingly endless waters and sighed. This Age was her home, but this wasn't exactly a nice homecoming. Gehn had been alerted to her arrival almost immediately, and had searched tirelessly for her for two months before finally capturing her. She had refused to tell him anything, always answering his questions in Rivenese, but she could understand him perfectly, and she could tell that he was just itching to put her on the gallows. He couldn't, though, and Catherine knew why. She was bait – for surely it could not be long before Atrus came in search of her, and then Gehn would have them both.

The floor shuddered violently. Another quake, she realised, but even worse than the last one. The Age was getting worse. Atrus surely could not hold it together for much longer.

* * *

Gehn linked back into his Age cursing loudly at nobody in particular. This was the biggest news since Catherine had arrived nearly six months ago. Not one but four strangers wandering around Riven! And there was a book, a linking book leading back to D'ni, but those accursed Moiety rebels had intercepted it. It was all the fault of that accursed guard, thought Gehn angrily. He got jumped by the rebels again, and the rebels got the book and broke the cage into the bargain.

And Catherine, why must she insist on answering his questions in Rivenese? By the Maker, he swore, it was only the fact that she was bait for bigger fish that stopped him from stringing her up on the gallows.

"Bait for bigger fish..." he chuckled to himself quietly. "Ah, I must write that one down..."

* * *

Atrus threw down his pen and flexed the writer's cramp out of his hand. He could tell; the quakes were getting worse. He'd taken care of them for the minute, but things were getting worse, and it surely could not be long until the quakes tore Riven apart. He sighed and sank back in his chair.

"Oh my friends," he muttered to himself, "please hurry. Riven hasn't got much time left."

* * *

Rachel peeled herself off the ground. The quake had subsided after a few minutes, but that didn't make it particularly enjoyable. As far as she was concerned it was shades of Selenitic, and she hadn't enjoyed herself there at all. Fortunately, the others were also unharmed by the quake.

"I don't think we've got time to waste right now. I think we need to get off this island and start searching the others, and I think we need to do it now." The others nodded.

"We saw that man last night," put in Maddy, "he came from that island over there." She pointed at the island that they could see from where they were, which appeared to have a large jungle on it. "Then he came up that tunnel," she pointed at the tunnel in the rock across the bridge, "so doesn't it follow that our ticket off this island is down that tunnel?"

"But Maddy," sighed Brittany, "We've looked down there already. We found that room with the cage chair and that big temple."

"The temple had a big door in it," countered Maddy.

"Which was locked."

"Well, we'll have to try to unlock it. Search the temple and the cage chair room a bit more. What else are we going to do?"

Brittany had no response to that, and Maddy's plan was the best they had, so search they did.

* * *

Maddy leaned against the stone door and pushed as hard as she could, but it wouldn't open. Now they couldn't get into the temple. She looked at Rachel, who for some reason was suppressing laughter.

"Rachel, we can't get into the temple. Why are you laughing at that?"

Rachel didn't reply. Instead, she stepped up to the door, grabbed the handle and pulled. With a grating of stone hinges the door swung open, projecting a shaft of light into the tunnel. With a wan smile at Maddy, Rachel went inside the temple.

Exactly what was meant to be worshipped here, none of them were entirely sure, but the huge room was magnificent nevertheless. At one end was a huge spherical cage with some sort of star emblem inside it, and at the other end was a huge ornately-patterned but firmly locked door. The rest was decorated with huge pillars and exotic lanterns. The stone door leading out into the tunnel was concealed behind one of the pillars and blended in almost exactly with the wall.

* * *

A little further back, Jordan and Brittany were in the room with the large cage chair in it. Even as they stepped inside and closed the door behind them, the cage clicked and swung creakily open, almost invitingly. Jordan, who could never let a provocation go, stepped forward and sat down in the chair. On the left arm was a switch; on the right was a button. He pressed the button and the cage closed around the chair again. A small microphone in the form of the same star emblem lowered down in front of him. He pushed the small switch. An ominous hum slowly filled the air, but nothing else seemed to happen. He shrugged at Brittany and pulled the switch again. The humming stopped. Another press of the button raised the cage from the chair. Jordan stepped out looking rather disappointed. Brittany, however, was examining something on the stone wall near the chair.

"Here, look at this," she said to Jordan. It appeared to be some sort of surveillance camera. It showed a very fuzzy image of what looked like some sort of station. Where, exactly, this station was, they could only guess, but as it turned out, they guessed correctly.

* * *

Back in the temple, Maddy was busily trying to convince Rachel to regain consciousness after she fainted when the large spherical cage at the back of the temple had lit up, showing a very large hologram of someone very familiar. The hologram had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, but it was there for long enough to give Rachel the fright of her life.

It was only as the colour was beginning to return to Rachel's face that the huge ornate door opposite the spherical cage gave a shuddering clunk and began to slide smoothly upward, for no particular reason whatsoever. Maddy looked at it in amazement, then she was distracted by both the sound of Rachel's consciousness finally returning to her body and realising what a big mistake it had just made, and the sound of Jordan and Brittany coming into the temple and tripping over Rachel.

After everybody had picked themselves up off the ground and then sat back down on the ground because their heads hurt, they started the explanations. Maddy went first.

"We saw you, Jordan, in that big cage. A hologram, or something. Gave Rachel quite a fright." (Rachel turned red.)

"Well, that must have something to do with that cage chair," said Brittany. "Jordan sat down in that but nothing seemed to happen."

Maddy nodded in agreement. "And the door? Did you open the door as well?"

"Yeah," replied Jordan, "we found some sort of switch in that other room, next to some sort of surveillance camera that was watching this temple. There was also another camera, which showed some sort of station. We think it might be outside this door."

They all went out the huge door and found that Jordan and Brittany had been right – the station that they had seen in the camera was indeed here. The rails running from this island to the next started at this station and wound their way around in a tight curve towards the other island. The station was empty, but there was a large blue button on a pedestal standing next to a set of stone steps that led up to nowhere in particular.

Maddy looked at the others. When none of them made any objection, she pressed the button. It made a loud "clunk" noise, and within a second a dull hum had started up, and a small tram began making its way along the rails towards them, finally docking with a loud wheezing noise at the station and opening the door invitingly.

Jordan cautiously climbed the stairs and entered the tram. It was fairly small, and there was one chair sitting in front of a very meagre control board. He sat down in it as the others came up the stairs and crowded in as well.

There were only two controls on the dashboard. Jordan turned one of them. The door gave a wheeze, a hiss of air and closed slowly. Then the tram jolted and turned itself sharply around so that it was facing back the way it came.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," he muttered in answer to the unasked question in the air, and pushed the second control forward. The tram jolted again, inched slowly forward, then began to gather speed at a terrifying rate. By the time they got to the first bend in the rails, the tram was moving like a rocket, and just to add to the terror in the air, the rails were shaking like anything.

The tram swung sickeningly round the bend without slowing at all, rocketed towards a tiny island in the middle of the sea and jolted straight over the top of it, as if the ride wasn't scary enough. It rounded the second bend still travelling at a colossal speed, but then the second island was on top of them. They rocketed up towards another station on the island, and then the brakes cut in with a screech, slowing the tram sickeningly until finally it stopped and the door hissed open, allowing all four of them to collapse out onto the ground.

"Good Lord," Maddy was the first to speak, "that was terrifying!"

Rachel nodded her agreement. "I hope we don't have to do that again."

"I wouldn't bank on that," replied Jordan.

Rachel closed her eyes. This was going to be a long job.


	4. Siren

**3 – Siren**

"Come on, Rach, we have to move!"

Rachel stirred herself from the stupor that the tram ride had put her into. Jordan was standing over her, a look of urgency on his face.

"What's the hurry?" she murmured. She had been rather enjoying being half asleep, considering how much sleep she had had the night before.

"The hurry," replied Jordan, "is that somebody just summoned the tram from the other island, meaning that they will be here at any second and we really don't want to run into them!"

"Well why didn't you just say so?" Rachel leapt to her feet and followed the other three up into a largish tunnel that led away from the tram station. They walked quickly, but as quietly as possible, because already they could hear the tram beginning to return to the station.

The tunnel came out halfway up a steep hill with steps running up and down it. A large blue button on a pedestal, identical to the one near the station on the other island, stood at the mouth of the tunnel, presumably to summon the tram here from the other island.

Brisk footsteps echoed up the tunnel, and the four of them turned right and ran up the hill. Fortunately it was only a fairly short way to run. The steps ended at a rope bridge which spanned a small chasm in the rock over to a clearing. The four of them ran across the bridge and made for a small rickety wooden gate which led into the smallish jungle. Bursting through there, they turned and leapt into the trees to conceal themselves. Ever so carefully, Maddy peered through a gap in the trees out towards the clearing.

A third guard, in that same white uniform, was standing on this end of the rope bridge. He was looking around, as if he had heard something. He had heard something – he had heard what sounded like four people running to conceal themselves. He started down the path and pushed the wooden gate open, walking into the jungle. Jordan, Rachel, Maddy and Brittany all held their breath, but the guard walked past them without a second glance and disappeared down the path. The four of them waited in the trees for a little longer. Five minutes later, just as Maddy was about to step out onto the path, the guard returned, obviously in a hurry. He was carrying a large pile of freshly-cut wood. As the four of them watched from the trees, he carried the wood over to a small hole in the ground and dumped it in. Then he did something very strange. He reached into the hole and pulled at something, then withdrew his hand quickly.

"What is he doing?" breathed Maddy.

"I have a feeling we'll find out soon enough," murmured Jordan.

Having presumably done what he came here to do, the man straightened up, then went back over to the rope bridge and down the hill. A minute later, the four of them still hiding in the trees saw the tram hurtle back towards the other island, which they had come to refer to as the Dome Island.

After waiting a little longer and deciding it was safe, Maddy stepped out onto the path and pushed the wooden gate open with a squeak. Still cautious, she walked over to the hole in the ground, with the others following her. What they saw in the hole was very strange and not at all what they expected.

The hole was fairly small, but large enough for Maddy to stand in up to her neck. There were some sort of tracks on the ground, and a small lever on the wall. The tracks extended down an underground tunnel that proceeded along for about ten metres before sloping down dramatically.

"Well, that's rather strange," said Maddy as she peered down along the tunnel. She would have expected it to be dark, but oddly enough a dim orange glow radiated up from where it sloped down.

Maddy was about to say something else, but Rachel interrupted her. "Shh! Listen!" she hissed, and pointed down the tunnel.

At first they heard nothing, but then the other three heard what Rachel's keener ears had picked up earlier. A distant clattering was coming from deep within the tunnel, growing quickly closer.

Brittany reached down and helped Maddy out of the tunnel. As they watched, a small cart clattered into view, stopping with a clunk when it reached the end of the tunnel. There were a few wood shavings in the bottom of the cart, but other than that it was empty.

Maddy stepped back down into the cart. Despite its rickety appearance, it was very sturdy, and large enough for her.

"This might be our ticket off this island," she said to the other three.

"Are you crazy?" exclaimed Rachel. "That thing is obviously not meant for people to use. Atrus would go nuts if he saw us use that."

"Atrus," replied Maddy, "is not here."

"Well, at least let's finish looking around this island," pleaded Rachel. Maddy got out of the cart and they headed back into the jungle.

* * *

Atrus was examining the swirling static of the image in the Riven book with a frown on his face. Something wasn't right; he had written the corrections into Riven frantically, but he had checked them against his notes and they were definitely correct, but still he could tell that there was no change in the island's condition. This was no time to make mistakes. Six weeks, he calculated he could hold back the total collapse of Riven, and a mistake like this was liable to cost the Age precious time – time that he could not afford to lose. Pulling a scrap of paper towards him, he hurriedly began to recalculate.

* * *

Gehn put down his pen and flicked back to the first page of the book. Reading over what he had written, he picked up his notes and began to compare the two. He knew that it would not be long until Riven fell apart – his measurements showed that it would last five weeks, maybe six if they were lucky. He had to finish this new Age for the villagers, and he had to do it quickly. It was coming together, but he would still need to take a few soil and water samples from this Age first. At least he knew he wouldn't be disturbed – the last thing he wanted at a time like this was the four strangers on his Age, so he had told all his men not to come here unless there was an emergency.

He sighed, pushed his chair back, donned his protective gear and opened the door into the horribly harsh outside world.

* * *

"This jungle is boring. Or is that just me?"

"Maddy," sighed Brittany in reply, "you think a lot of things are boring."

"That's not the point. The point is..."

She stopped and thought for a minute.

"All right, maybe that is the point. But still -"

"Can it, you two," snapped Rachel. "We need to not be seen or heard right now."

The four of them were standing on a small staircase leading from the jungle up to another small wooden gate which opened out into a smallish canyon. They couldn't see out the gate very far, so they couldn't be sure whether there was anyone there or not.

Maddy, impatient and brave as she was (a terrible combination), stepped past Rachel and pushed the gate open. She stepped out into the canyon and looked swiftly around. It was only after she beckoned the other three out as well that something happened.

Maddy had managed to overlook a large, thin pole stretching up from the bottom of the canyon. Perched on top of the pole was a small conic capsule, and inside the capsule was a dark shadow watching them. Even as the four of them down below began to breathe easier, the shadow was reaching for a small handle on the roof of the capsule.

A mournful, wailing siren echoed around the canyon, making the four of them freeze where they were. Even as their eyes were drawn to the figure in the capsule, it let go of the handle and ducked down, disappearing from sight. The siren trailed out slowly, but still the four of them didn't move.

"They know we're here. What do we do now?" whispered Brittany eventually.

The steady click of footsteps echoed from the tunnel off to the right.

"I'll tell you what we do," replied Rachel. "We run."

* * *

Catherine picked up two apples and an orange from the bowl on her desk and began to juggle them. She had become very practised at juggling in the months that she'd been here, because there had been little else to do. But now there was nothing else to do, not since she discovered that she'd lost the six of hearts from her deck of cards. However, juggling was still very repetitive, and eventually she threw the orange and one of the apples back into the bowl and started to eat the other apple.

Gehn had told her about the four strangers that had arrived on Riven, and her friend Nelah (who brought her food) had shown her the book that the strangers had brought. Gehn had told her that the strangers had brought a Linking book with them, but Catherine had seen the book for what it really was. She had instructed Nelah to give the strangers her journal, which she pushed a hastily scribbled note into, and to give them back the book, but to be careful about it. There would be trouble if Gehn worked out what it really was.

* * *

Another world, another day, another dawn.

The sun poked his head out from behind the old volcano, and after a minute began his slow ascent into the sky. Nearly six months had passed, he recalled, since a huge dust storm whipped through the compound. He hadn't seen either of the small people who lived in the little house down there for a while either, come to think of it. That was a shame; he liked them.

As he slowly inched his way up into the sky over the desert, he glimpsed one of his old rivals on the western horizon, slowly advancing towards him. There would be quite the battle when she got here, the sun thought. She didn't come here often, but when she did he never enjoyed it.

He stared out at his old enemy slowly creeping towards him. She had regained her strength since her last visit, he saw. Still, she had one great failing, and she just couldn't seem to cover that weakness.

He smiled to himself. Let her come, he thought. He was ready.


	5. Boil

**4 – Boil**

_{Atrus' journal, 2.12.17}_

_My mistake in calculations earlier on has cost me – and Riven – precious time, and perhaps anything up to two weeks of the six I had given Riven. Under no circumstances can I afford another mistake. That will seal the fate of Riven and everyone on it, including Catherine and my four friends._

* * *

_{Rachel's journal, 2nd December}_

_The quakes started again today. Just like last time, but more violent. I feel that we are fast running out of time to find this book._

_This world is an enigma. I have no idea what's going on here. There's something that we've seen here that I know there's more to find out about. I suspect that it will help us find our book if we can work out what it is, but I just don't know. Something small, but strange..._

* * *

_{Jordan's journal, 2-Dec}_

_This island has the key to finding our book. I know it. I don't know how I know, but I know. There is something here, something small, that will help us find it if we could only put our finger on it._

_On an unrelated note, my pen is running low on ink. I might have to start making these entries shorter, otherwise I might run out, and that would be a real nuis_

* * *

_{Brittany's journal, 2-12}_

_I'd better make this short. Jordan wants to borrow my pen for some reason._

_I suspect that the others know as well, but I reckon that there's something here on this island that we're all overlooking. Something small, but important. I hope we find it soon._

* * *

_{Jordan's journal, continued}_

_cance._

_Yep, see what I mean?_

* * *

_{Maddy's journal, 12/2}_

_I don't see what's so wrong with wanting to see where that tunnel with the cart in it leads. It'll be fun. Dangerous, maybe, but fun._

_I reckon that there's something about these small wooden eyes we've been seeing around this island that we need to know. Nobody else seems to have noticed them, but I've heard them talking. Nobody ever asks me, though._

* * *

_{Gehn's personal journal, 2.12.17}_

_The four strangers are still loose on the Fifth Age. I know that their linking book was stolen. That means that I win either way... if they find the book, I will seize it and escape, and if they don't find it, they will perish when Riven falls apart in little more than a month._

_Anyway, I'm fairly happy with progress rates on the new Age for the villagers to relocate to. My Two Hundred and Thirty-Fourth Age will be much more pleasant than this Two Hundred and Thirty-Third, but I am still very happy with the way that this world has turned out. It is a great achievement just to not be stranded on the Fifth Age any longer._

* * *

Jordan, Rachel, Maddy and Brittany stood in front of the square hole in the ground that marked the entrance to the tunnel with the cart in it. The third day of December had dawned twenty minutes ago without any of them realising exactly how interesting life would get in seven days, and a chilly ocean breeze was blowing in from the direction of the Dome Island.

"So," said an impatient Maddy, "who's going first?"

Nobody else spoke, but all three of them turned and looked at Maddy, who looked around, slightly startled, before speaking again.

"Well, Brittany, why don't you come with me?"

"Ah, well, um -"

"Great."

Maddy pushed Brittany into the cart before she could finish getting her protest out, then jumped in after her and flicked the lever on the wall. The cart sped away into the tunnel, leaving Rachel and Jordan standing next to the hole, listening to the rattling getting quickly more distant. There was silence between the two of them for a minute, before Rachel spoke up.

"I had a strange dream last night."

Jordan glanced at her, eyebrows raised. "Oh?"

"Yeah. It was bizarre. The four of us were with Atrus and Catherine somewhere that I didn't recognise. Catherine had a daughter, only about a month old, and I had a daughter as well, the same age. And they both had unusual names. And then a strange man appeared, and there was fire everywhere, and lots of burned books."

"Maybe it was a premonition. Maybe that will happen one day."

Rachel looked at him with a frown. He was perfectly serious.

"I'd need a daughter first."

They looked at one another for a moment, and then Jordan leaned in close and kissed Rachel gently. She accepted his offering without protest, returning his kiss with one of her own.

"How long has it been?"

"Since what?"

"You know what I'm talking about, Jordan." Rachel could not keep a straight face when she said this, a smile crossing her face and making its way over to his.

"A while, Rach. We didn't whilst we were on Myst."

"Yes we did, once."

"Oh yeah. Didn't Atrus nearly walk in on us?"

"Yep. We were lucky. Not that there was anyone he could have told."

"Apart from Mop and Brittany."

"As if they hadn't guessed what we were doing already."

"Yeah, but they didn't know for sure."

"True." Rachel was staring off into the distance now, recalling things a long while past. "Where were they that day? We wouldn't have done it if they had been on the island."

"They went to Mechanical. It wasn't too long after Atrus put those sleeping bags there, and Maddy's arm was still broken. They went to Mechanical to get some decent cloth for a sling."

"Oh yeah." Rachel was smiling now, recalling what had happened that day. "That was fun."

Jordan didn't get a chance to do more than chuckle and nod before the cart began rattling back up the tunnel, stopping inside the hole. The two of them looked down into the hole and were surprised to see Brittany sitting in there, curled into a foetal ball on the bottom of the cart.

"Brittany?" Rachel reached down and poked her. "It's finished now."

Brittany uncurled herself and stood shakily up. She was very pale and rather shaken up.

"I suppose," observed Jordan, "that this means that the cart ride isn't very enjoyable?"

"No," replied Brittany. "Maddy loved it, of course."

* * *

The three of them crammed into the cart, and Jordan managed to find the switch on the wall.

"Hold on," advised Brittany.

The cart started forward into the tunnel with a jolt, moving first slowly towards the slope, then going over the lip of the slope and beginning to gather speed at a frightening rate. They hurtled down the steep tunnel, deep into the bowels of the island. Then, all of a sudden, the tunnel was lined by huge fiery rings that were emitting a lot of heat. That, however, was nothing compared to what happened next.

The earthy walls of the tunnel vanished, and the cart was left hurtling along the tracks surrounded by rings of fire, through what appeared to be a tunnel through the water. This, thought Rachel as she fought to conceal what she had had for breakfast this morning, made the tram ride from the Dome Island seem tame.

After what seemed like an eternity, but what was in reality about thirty seconds, the tracks sloped upwards and they emerged into the open air. The Jungle Island lay a long way behind them, and looming ahead of them was another, different island. They were heading for a largish opening in the rock cliff of the island. The colossal speed they had been travelling at had decreased massively and they were now travelling along quite comfortably, apart from the fact that there were three of them travelling in a cart clearly not designed for human use.

As the cart entered the side of the island, everything became pitch dark. Without warning, they rounded a corner into a dimly lit area, and finally the cart thumped against a bumper at the end of the tracks and stopped with a jolt. However, the ride was not over yet.

Before any of them could get out of the cart, the bottom fell away under them and they toppled down into a chute. They tumbled down the chute and hit a swinging gate in the wall, which opened with a crash, depositing them onto a large piece of machinery that appeared to be a log chipper and which was, fortunately, turned off. Maddy was standing next to it waiting for them, smiling widely.

"Maddy," asked Brittany in exasperation, "if you liked that so much why didn't you go back to get these two?"

"Because I wanted to see what you looked like after going back and forth again," Maddy replied with a wide grin.

Brittany leapt down off the log chipper to run after Maddy, but stumbled upon hitting the ground and fell into a large pile of wood chippings lying next to the machine's output tube.

At this, Maddy could contain herself no longer and burst out laughing. Jordan and Rachel looked at Brittany, then at Maddy, then at each other, and then they burst out laughing as well.

Brittany was not amused.

* * *

Gehn threw his pen across the room and cursed loudly. His writing was not going well, and that was saying the least. There was something vitally wrong with what he had written, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

He reached across his desk, picked up his pipe and lit it. This year's mix was particularly nice, and always calmed him down whenever he was angry like this. He needed to keep his thoughts straight or he'd never get this book finished. God knows, he needed a good pipe right now, what with the writing going badly, the four strangers still missing on Riven, and Catherine still refusing to tell him anything not in Rivenese.

He drew deeply on the pipe, then exhaled with a sigh. That was much better.

* * *

Catherine stood on the small balcony overlooking the seemingly endless ocean and sighed. From here she could see all of the tiny island that she was stranded on, what there was to see. The ancient tree stump that she was imprisoned on, and Gehn's dome turning noisily on a tiny piece of flat rock just off the coast.

This island had drifted so far away from the rest of Riven that Catherine couldn't even see the other four islands. She was imprisoned on a tiny speck of dirt in the middle of a vast ocean. The only way for anyone to get here now was through Gehn's Age, and that was a highly unlikely thing.

Highly unlikely, but perhaps... just possible. The four strangers, after all, had nothing with them now, but they had evaded capture by Gehn for almost a week now. Where they were exactly, she did not know; she knew only what Gehn and Nelah had told her. She knew that the book that was to be used to imprison Gehn was being held on Tay, the Age she herself had written for the rebels, but she also knew that the strangers would have a job finding the entrance to Tay, let alone getting past the final defences and actually making it to the Age. But they had to – it was her only hope.

* * *

Jordan, Rachel, Maddy and Brittany were standing at the lip of the Crater Lake surveying the landscape of this third island. Maddy had made a valiant attempt to climb up out of the crater, but she had fallen when she was almost at the top. Fortunately, she landed in the wood chippings, giving Brittany a chance to laugh back a bit. Now, however, all laughter was finished.

"So," said Rachel, "have we exhausted all other possibilities?"

"Yes, I believe we have, Rach," replied Jordan. "That boiler must be the way onwards, but it'll be risky. One of us should go first to see if it's safe and if they can find another way down."

Jordan, Rachel and Brittany all looked simultaneously at the same person.

"What?"

* * *

Maddy lowered herself carefully down the ladder into the pipe. It was uncomfortably warm down here, but then, a large amount of boiling water had just been drained out through this pipe.

Her feet hit the bottom of the ladder. The only light down here was the tiny pinprick of light from the boiler, way up above her. She started forward into the blackness, feeling her way forward slowly. However, she was unlucky enough to not see the second ladder until she walked into it.

She peered up into the pitch blackness. The pipe appeared to level out again up above her, so she climbed.

At the top of the ladder, she saw a welcome sight off in the distance – the mouth of the pipe. A freezing sea breeze was whistling down the pipe, making her shiver, but she pressed forward anyway.

Her foot bumped against something on the floor, which clattered loudly as it spun away from her. Carefully reaching down, she picked it up. It was cold, made of metal, but other than that she couldn't see much about it in the dark. Holding on to it, she crawled forward and out onto the lip of the pipe.

She was right next to the coast. The glittering shape of the Dome Island dominated the horizon that she could see. The pipe jutted out of the rock two metres or so above a narrow, rocky path leading along the rock. There did not appear to be any other way down, so she lowered herself down carefully and dropped down.

After inspecting herself for breakages and discovering none, and observing the distance from the ground to the mouth of the pipe and discovering that she could not get back up there, she started off along the path.

It wasn't very far to walk. The path led over a small rise and ended at a small balcony that the four of them had observed before. There was a ladder below the balcony leading up to it, but the hatch that it came out at was locked from the top. Now, Maddy unlocked it before calling out to the other three. They came over quickly and climbed up to join her.

"So, shall we go in?" Maddy asked. Without waiting for an answer, she pushed open the large doors set into the rock, revealing a large dark passage behind it.

* * *

The sun sat firmly in the desert sky, staring off at his old adversary in the distance. He did a few quick mental calculations and deduced that it would take her a few weeks to get here.

A small messenger of hers came running up to him. He looked down at it with unconcealed contempt – he still did not know why she used these pathetic little creatures as her messengers.

"Mr Sun, sir, my mistress says she is coming to meet you again," it squeaked, cowering under his glare. "She wishes to -"

"Challenge me to another duel, I'm sure," interrupted the sun. "Yes, yes, yes, I've heard it all before. Get lost."

He gave the messenger a push and it ran off with another squeak back towards its mistress.

He pushed himself up in the sky a little more to the midday position. It was all downhill from here. He glanced once more at his enemy on the horizon and smiled before starting on his way down the afternoon side of the sky.

* * *

Jordan, Maddy and Brittany stood at the end of the cave, looking down into the water. There didn't appear to be any way onwards from here – it was a dead end. Rachel had gone for another look around the crater, but the other three didn't expect her to find anything, which she didn't. However, when she was coming back, she did find something. As she clambered up the ladder onto the balcony, she noticed a path leading out along the rock cliff – a path that didn't appear to have any way for anyone to get to it. Frowning, she walked inside and examined the walls of the cave. There didn't appear to be any sort of secret opening... unless, of course, it wasn't secret at all, but merely...

Rachel grabbed the handles of the doors and closed them. The light from outside was immediately extinguished, but some light still came from the two tunnels that had been covered by the doors – one on the left, one on the right.

"Hey guys!" she called out, her voice echoing weirdly through the cave. "I found a way out!"

* * *

_{Jordan's journal, 3-Dec}_

_We'd all be completely lost here without Rachel. Just saying._


	6. Spike

**5 – Spike**

"Is it safe?"

Rachel and Maddy were standing at the mouth of the small cave that led through the rock at the rim of the crater. Behind them was the Crater Island, and in front of them a long, spindly bridge stretched across the crystal blue water to meet the glittering shape of the Dome Island that loomed on the horizon.

"I'm sure it is," replied Maddy. "Do you think it'd still be here if it wasn't safe?"

"I've learnt," said Rachel, "not to take these things for granted."

"Fair enough," admitted Maddy.

They were silent for a minute, listening to the waves crashing on the rocks below them. Rachel glanced at Maddy out of the corner of her eye. She was busily thinking about something; that much was obvious to Rachel.

"A penny for your thoughts, Maddy."

Maddy glanced at Rachel. "I'm just thinking about the rebels. They've got our book, and we can't find them. We never expected them to be easy to find, after all, but still, they must have left clues somewhere. Little things, that Gehn would overlook, like those little wooden eyes. And even then -"

"Wait, wait, wait," Rachel interrupted suddenly. "Back up to what you said about things that Gehn would overlook."

"The wooden eyes that we saw on the Jungle Island," replied Maddy. "They each made a different sound when we spun them around, and they each had a different symbol on the back of them."

Rachel was busily running over Jungle Island in her head. Maddy was absolutely right – they had seen a number of wooden eyes there. Each one had made a different noise when it was turned, and had a different strange symbol on the back of it. None of them had been able to work out what they meant; at least, not at the time.

Two sets of footsteps rang in the corridor behind them, and Jordan and Brittany came around the corner.

"Any luck?"

* * *

Gehn sat back in his chair and drew deeply on his pipe. At first he had been irritated when one of his men had appeared on his Age earlier today, but his mood had changed entirely when the man reported that the four strangers had been sighted on the Crater Island. He thought back to the conversation he had had with his man.

"Yes, my lord, I'm quite sure. I saw them poking around near the boiler," said the man. "I kept out of sight, of course, and came straight to you."

"How did they get there?" Gehn had exclaimed. "I can see how they could have got to the Jungle Island, but to get to the Crater Island they would have had to come via the bridge in the golden dome, which has to be lowered from the Crater Island side anyway, or from the Plateau Island, which is too difficult to get to."

"My lord, I believe they may have used the log cart."

Gehn had paused. "Of course, the log cart. That must be it. But if they used that, they're either brave or suicidal, and I'm not fond of either option." He had considered this for a bit. "All right then, do this for me." Gehn went to his desk, drew a sheet of paper towards him and scribbled a note. "Take this straight to the Grand Master of the Guild of Maintainers. Say that you have orders from me. Give him this note." Handing the note to the man, Gehn had smiled. "You've done very well. You shall be rewarded. Go now, and remember to deactivate the generator."

"Yes, my lord." The man had linked straight to the Jungle Island, and Gehn had powered down his stove in the best mood he had been in for a long time.

* * *

The Grand Master of the Guild of Maintainers read the note and the signature at the bottom. "So the four strangers have been seen. Well, it was only a matter of time. Thank you, Guildsman." The young guildsman stood up, bowed clumsily to the Grand Master and left. He had seemed very uncomfortable, but then again, the Inkmakers didn't often associate with the Maintainers.

The Grand Master got up from behind his desk and went into the guild hall, where most of the guild was currently sitting. The conversation died immediately when the Grand Master entered, as all eyes and ears turned to him.

"Now hear this," he called, loudly enough for everyone to hear him. "The four strangers have been sighted on one of the other islands. The Lord Gehn has given orders that they should be captured when they return to this island, but not before. All available guards are to be dispatched immediately to cover the island. Cover the two most likely entry points as well as the entrances to the jungle."

"Sir, which are the two most likely entry points?" called one man. "The tram from the Dome Island?"

"Yes, and the log cart. They are known to have used the log cart to transport themselves before."

"What about the idol?" called another man.

"The Lord Gehn does not think it is necessary to cover the idol. Do not stand in plain view at the entry points – wait to ambush them. Hide in the bushes just inside the jungle to cover those entrances. Don't shoot unless necessary, and don't shoot to kill. The Lord Gehn wants them alive. Take them to the prison cell above the gallows. Any other questions?"

There was silence. The Grand Master nodded. "Then go. And remember – the Lord Gehn wants them alive. Guild Masters Agius, Tinen and Frances will gather one group of guards each and meet me near the Dome Island tram station in one hour."

* * *

"So how many of them are there?"

Jordan, Rachel, Maddy and Brittany were walking back to Gehn's lab slowly, deep in conversation about the wooden eyes on the Jungle Island.

"Well," replied Brittany, "there was one near the tram station. It sounded like a frog."

"There was one at the base of that big knife in the jungle," put in Jordan, "which sounded like those weird-looking creatures we saw on the rocks in the lagoon."

"There was one stuck into those rocks," added Rachel, "which sounded like a whale or something."

"There was one in the water basin in the village," said Maddy, "which sounded like an insect of some description."

"That's four," said Rachel. "Is that all?"

Maddy and Jordan just shrugged. Brittany, however, had something intellectual to say.

"No, I don't think it is. Think about everything else we've seen here. The pentagonal rotating room with five pillars and five entrances. Five pipes leading out of the golden dome. And this pentagonal symbol everywhere we go. The people of this world are obsessed with the number five. I think there's one more of those eyes for us to find."

* * *

The pentagonal laboratory was easily the most interesting room the four of them had been in so far. Three of the walls had benches on them, which were cluttered with various instruments but still neat, and the other two walls contained the doors. One door, which they had just come in by, led back out to the path above the crater, and had a large blue button on a stand next to it. The other door led out to the coast, where a set of weathered stone steps led down to an empty tram station. However, they had all decided that before they braved another wild ride across the ocean, they would finish what they were doing here. As Jordan, Maddy and Brittany started to look through the things on Gehn's desks, Rachel left the pentagonal room and headed back for the bridge over to the Dome Island.

* * *

Atrus closed the huge Riven descriptive book with a sigh. He'd written in the corrections and they appeared to be holding. The Age didn't appear to have gotten much better, but he'd stopped it getting any worse, at least for the moment. What he'd written already would allow him maybe six hours sleep, and then he'd have to write the next part in. He couldn't oversleep like last time, though, or the corrections would be useless.

* * *

"Do we absolutely have to?"

"Yes, Rach, we do. Unless you have a better way of getting to that island?"

The tram that had been summoned from the island with the spike plateau sat waiting in the bay. Maddy and Brittany were inside already, but Rachel was more dubious. Jordan was hanging in the doorway, trying to convince Rachel to get in.

"The last time I got in one of those things, I almost threw up."

"The alternative," cut in Brittany, poking her head out the door, "is to go back down to the crater and take the log cart back to Jungle Island."

Rachel thought about this briefly, and needed no more convincing. She got in, and Maddy turned the switch to point them towards the Plateau Island.

"Hold on, everybody," said Maddy, a little too cheerfully, and pushed the switch forward.

There was no slow start this time. The tram lifted up slightly, then shot off down the tracks like a rocket. It was straight as an arrow for most of the time, however when it did reach a curve in the tracks it took it without slowing down at all, throwing all of them into a large heap on the floor. By the time they had gotten back up, the tram had docked in a station situated just inside a small cave.

The four of them got shakily out of the tram and collapsed on the stone platform. It was then that they noticed something strange.

On this side of the platform, there was a large blue call button on a stand, as well as a low tunnel leading up, presumably to the plateau. However, on the other side of the platform was another blue call button, and a door set into the wall.

* * *

"All right, guildsmen -"

"And women."

"Yes," sighed the Grand Master of the Guild of Maintainers, "and guildswomen. You all know where to go. Group one, you go to the canyon jungle gate. Got that, Guild Master Agius?"

The leftmost Guild Master nodded. "Cover ourselves in the bushes near the fire lilies, Grand Master. Don't shoot to kill."

"Good. Dispatch, then."

The Guild Master nodded, turned to his group and shouted some orders. They dispatched towards the canyon.

"Group two," continued the Grand Master, "you go to the clearing. The same group can cover the clearing jungle gate as well as the log cart. All right, Guild Master Tinen?"

Guild Master Tinen, of the middle group, nodded. "Hide in the trees near the entrance, and keep an eye on the cart as well as the jungle gate, Guild Master."

"Very good. Dispatch, then."

Again, the Guild Master nodded, shouted some orders to his group and moved out towards the clearing.

"And finally, group three, you stay here and cover the tram station. Conceal yourselves in the tunnel and listen for the tram to arrive. Just make sure that it is the four strangers that have used the tram before you accost them. Ready, Guild Master Frances?"

The young woman of the rightmost group nodded. "Ready as we'll ever be, Grand Master."

"Good. Off you go, then."

Before the third group could move out, however, a man came stumbling out of the tunnel, breathless. He was clad in a rather large Surveyor's uniform. He looked frantically around, and when he saw the Grand Master, he ran up to him.

"Grand Master Neil, sir!" the man exclaimed breathlessly. "My superior asked me to bring this to you immediately. It's very important." He pulled a piece of paper out of his breast pocket and handed it to the Grand Master. The Grand Master unfolded it and read it quickly. His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"On the Plateau Island? Are you sure, Guildsman?"

"Quite sure, Grand Master, sir. My superior, Guild Master John, saw them get out of the tram from the Crater Island."

"Very well, then..." The Grand Master pulled a pen from his pocket and scribbled a quick addition at the bottom of the note. Putting his pen away, he turned to his group of guards, who had not left yet.

"Guild Master Frances, arrange your men quickly, then go to the Dome Island and take this note straight to the Lord Gehn." He handed the note to the Guild Master, who bowed to him, then turned away and shouted orders to her group.

The Grand Master turned back to the Surveyor. "Thank you, Guildsman. Please inform Guild Master John that I have had the Lord Gehn informed of this development."

"Yes, Grand Master, sir." The Surveyor bowed clumsily and raced off back up the tunnel.

Guild Master Frances emerged from the tunnel. She bowed again to the Grand Master, then climbed up into the tram, turning the controls hurriedly and shooting off towards the Dome Island.

The Grand Master sighed, rubbing his hand over his eyes. He turned on his heel and marched back up the tunnel towards the village.

* * *

Brittany stood on the balcony overlooking the vast plateau. The massive spikes of rock sticking up from them didn't appear to be artificial – it looked like they were actually natural.

The models of the islands that were laid out below them, however, were quite obviously not natural. A small copper plate on the balcony railing showed the pattern of squares dividing the once single island up into five smaller parts, and they all corresponded with the island models below. Looking up and at the horizon, Brittany could see, over the spikes, the tram tracks shooting off towards the large shape of the Crater Island. To her right, she could see another set of tracks curling off towards the massive shape of the Jungle Island, and between the two was the Temple Island, which was not connected to this one.

Rachel and Jordan emerged from the narrow tunnel behind her and came up to her. "Any luck?"

"Oh yes," replied Brittany, smiling. "Look, we can use this to work out exactly where we are and where everything else is and what it looks like."

"Go on," said Jordan.

"Well, we are currently on this island here," said Brittany, pointing at the island at the lower left, "shaped like an L. Directly north of us is this square one, which is the Crater Island." She pointed out at the Crater Island, visible above the spikes. "This big one..." (she pointed at the lower right island) "...is the Jungle Island, which you can see over there." Again, she pointed at the dark shape of the Jungle Island. "And finally, this one here is the Dome Island."

"But what about the small island?" put in Rachel.

"Well, we haven't been to the small island yet, but I can have a pretty good guess that it's fairly important," replied Brittany. "It's small and it's a long way away – you can't even see it from here. In other words..."

"It's the perfect place to hide something," finished Jordan. "Of course. But what?"

"Well... I suspect it's someone we're searching for. It could be the rebels, or it could be Gehn."

"I don't think it's the rebels," replied Rachel, "or else how would they get to the other islands so easily?"

"I don't think it's Gehn either," said Jordan, "because in that journal in his lab he spoke of finally managing to connect to another Age. I expect he set up residence there."

Brittany was stumped, as was Jordan. Rachel, however, had realised immediately who could be hidden there.

"It's gotta be Catherine," she said. "Gehn needed a secure place to put her, more secure than one of his regular prisons. Where would be more secure than there?"

"You're right, Rach," said Jordan. "Catherine must be there. But how do we get to her?"

"There must be a way there," replied Brittany. "But first things first. We need our book back. We need to find the rebels."

* * *

Gehn pounded his desk in anger, reading the note again to make sure he hadn't read it wrongly. Guild Master Frances recoiled from his anger as far as she could in the narrow cage that marked the link-in spot on his Age.

"This is terrible!" shouted Gehn. Frances continued to recoil, despite the fact that he was not shouting at her. Not yet.

"How can they be on the Plateau Island? If they work out everything that's on the Plateau Island they'll be able to get here!"

"My lord, we don't know that they'll be able to work it out. It is very devious, after all."

"No, no, that's true," said Gehn in a more controlled voice, stroking his chin. "Nevertheless, they have shown themselves to be rather adept. Go back to Grand Master Neil and tell him to double the men on Jungle Island, and send one man to Plateau Island to keep an eye on them."

"My lord -"

"Don't argue," said Gehn, his voice softly dangerous, "just go to Grand Master Neil."

"But, my lord -"

"Just go!" roared Gehn, turning to look the Guild Master straight in the eye. She stumbled backwards and collided with the back of the cage, terrified now, but still she stayed.

"My lord, all I wanted to say is -"

In one smooth, practised movement, Gehn seized his gun from the side of his desk, swung it up to eye level and flicked the trigger. The Guild Master's voice cut off immediately and she slumped to the floor of the cage.

"A pity," Gehn hissed to himself, "but people like her don't survive long anyway."

He flicked a switch on the wall and the cage lowered into the ground, allowing him access to Frances' body as well as the five linking books that connected him with Riven. Seizing Frances by the back of the neck, he opened the book linking him to the Jungle Island and planted his hand on the page.

* * *

Jordan, Rachel, Maddy and Brittany stumbled out of the golden elevator at the bottom of a very strange descent.

"That was rather strange," whispered Maddy.

The others just glanced at her and nodded. The tunnels down here were a little too quiet. They crept slowly towards the narrow door leading into the next tunnel. Brittany pushed it open the tiniest crack, and when she saw that the coast was clear, she motioned to the others. They moved into the tunnel, keeping quiet as mice.

Unfortunately, their luck was not in. No sooner had they moved a few steps into the tunnel than a tall man clad in a uniform similar to that of the other guards they had seen emerged from a side tunnel, reading something off a piece of paper. The four of them froze, hardly daring to breathe, but their luck was not in. The man looked up from the paper and straight up at the four of them. He froze also for a second, then turned and ran back into the side tunnel.

"Come on!" shouted Maddy, and ran after him. The other three followed close behind. All of them ran into the small tunnel at the same time and saw exactly the same thing.

The tunnel was very short and ended at another tram station. The tram was in the station, door closed and beginning to turn around. The man was seated at the controls, operating them frantically and constantly glancing at them with terrified looks. Finally, the tram finished its turn and shot off along the tracks towards the Jungle Island that was easily visible through the cave mouth.


	7. Drain

**6 – Drain**

Rachel, Maddy, Jordan and Brittany stumbled down the long wooden platform onto the ground. They looked around frantically to work out where they were.

It didn't take them long to realise that they were back on the Jungle Island. Behind them, the massive idol of the fish-come-whale which they had just emerged from was closing itself up again. Ahead of them, the well-worn path leading up through the jungle curved away from them. Even though the jungle had become rather familiar to them from their last visit, they sensed that something had changed. Everything looked the same, but somehow something was different.

Rachel, who was in front, turned to the others and whispered to them hurriedly. "Something's not right; I can feel it. You three hide yourselves in the trees there whilst I go for a walk. If I'm not back in five minutes, get back into that idol and back to the Plateau Island. Press on the top of that pillar there to open the idol."

"Rachel, you can't go up there by yourself!" hissed Maddy. Jordan and Brittany nodded agreement.

"Oh yes I can," murmured Rachel in reply. Here's how I look at it – Gehn almost certainly doesn't want to kill us – not yet, at any rate. If they capture me, you three will still be able to continue on."

"But Rach -"

"No buts, Jordan." Rachel paused for a moment longer, then turned and walked off down the path.

Maddy made to follow her, but Brittany caught her arm. "Don't bother, Maddy. Rachel's made up her mind."

* * *

The small group of guards crouched in the bushes near the entrance to the clearing were beginning to get sick of this.

"I need to relieve myself," grumbled one of them quietly to another. "How long does Tinen want us to stay here?"

"Either until we see the strangers, or until dark," the other man replied.

"Can't they -"

"Shh!"

Soft, careful footsteps were approaching along the path from within the jungle. The guards fell silent as a young woman approached. She appeared to be seventeen, maybe eighteen, with short brown hair and a very cautious look on her face.

The guard who had spoken earlier glanced at the other and mouthed silently, "Is that one of them?" The other guard nodded in reply.

The girl was a few metres from the gate now, past where the two of them were hiding. She was concentrating on the clearing beyond the gate, and didn't notice the two of them slip out from the trees and raise their weapons. At least, she didn't notice until she turned around and froze, staring at the two of them.

"Put your hands in the air," said the first guard, in Rivenese.

"I'm sorry?" said the girl, in English.

Unfortunately, the guards did not speak English, and the girl did not speak Rivenese. The rather more competent guard (the one who had spoken) sighed, and made a number of hand gestures that quite clearly said "hands up".

This time the girl got the message. She raised her hands, looking very worried.

The two other guards emerged from the bushes on the other side of the girl. Guild Master Tinen emerged from behind them as well. He walked over to look at the girl, then he spoke.

"She doesn't speak Rivenese?" Tinen said (in Rivenese) to his guards.

"No," replied the guard (in Rivenese).

Tinen turned back to the girl, then gestured to the guards. "Take her to the prison cell above the gallows. I will inform the Lord Gehn immediately."

* * *

Guild Master Tinen stood in front of the idol and called loudly in Rivenese.

"To the other three strangers, if you can hear me: I suggest you listen, if you can understand."

Jordan, Maddy and Brittany crouched in the bushes, fairly close to Tinen. Brittany was translating as best she could in a whisper.

"The Lord Gehn," continued Tinen, "will decide what to do with your friend. I will call off my men and give you a fair chance to escape or mount a rescue operation, whichever you wish. But be warned – we have no intention of letting your friend go, and we won't let you go either if we catch you.

"I am going now. I will call off all the guards. You have my word that you will not be captured if you come out. Goodbye."

Tinen turned on his heel and strode back up the path, shouting to the guards in Rivenese.

Jordan, Maddy and Brittany waited in the bushes and listened to Tinen's shouting growing fainter, until finally it stopped.

"Do we trust him?" breathed Maddy.

Brittany shrugged. Jordan, however, stepped out of the bushes and stood in front of the idol. Nothing happened.

"We absolutely have to find where they've taken her and get her back," said Jordan. Maddy and Brittany nodded agreement.

"They took her to the prison cell above the gallows," said Brittany.

"And you know that how?" cut in Maddy.

"I heard that Guild Master say so. He's gone to get Gehn, by the way."

"So, where are the gallows?"

* * *

Gehn clambered up the old iron ladder and walked over to where Grand Master Neil was standing with Grand Master May outside the prison cell. Neil looked very frustrated, whilst May was muttering to himself in Rivenese. Both of them jumped to attention as Gehn approached.

"My lord, we're having difficulty communicating with her. She speaks no Rivenese."

"My son sent her," replied Gehn, "did you actually expect her to speak Rivenese?"

Without waiting for a reply, he strode past the two Grand Masters and peered past the bars into the cell where the girl sat, staring out at them.

"So you don't speak Rivenese?" said Gehn in Rivenese. "Well, I'm sure we can find something that you do speak."

"My lord -"

"Not now, Grand Master May. Let me think here." Gehn paused for a minute, then spoke to the girl again, this time in D'ni. "Maybe you speak D'ni, then. What about D'ni?"

The girl remained silent, just looking at Gehn quizzically.

"Hmm," muttered Gehn to himself in D'ni, "let me see..." He paused a little longer, then made another attempt.

"English, perhaps. What about English?" he asked in fluent English.

The girl raised her eyebrows. "Yes," she replied, "English will be fine."

"Good, good," continued Gehn. "Now perhaps you can enlighten me on a few points here. I assume that my dear son Atrus sent you to rescue his wife?"

"Yes, he did," replied the girl.

"Very clever of him, not to come himself," mused Gehn. "I suppose he stayed behind to continue holding this world together?"

"Yes, he did," repeated the girl.

"But of course he would have given you a linking book. Perhaps you would be nice enough to give that to me?"

"I'm afraid not," replied the girl, "you know full well that it was stolen by the rebels."

"Very good," replied Gehn. "Now, one more thing... where are your three friends hiding?"

The girl's face creased into a frown. "If I knew, Gehn, I wouldn't tell you."

"Well, that makes little difference," replied Gehn. "We have called off the Maintainers, but rest assured that you will be well guarded. Your three sentimental friends are bound to mount a rescue mission, and when they do, we'll have them as well. Then, depending on whether I'm in a good mood, I might execute you, or I might not. But don't worry," he added, as he stood up to leave, "I'm not going to kill you just yet. I might accidentally forget to feed you tonight, but I won't kill you."

* * *

Jordan, Maddy and Brittany stood on the weathered but really rather magnificent platform on the base of the gallows. Having closed the floor over the gallows, they reasoned, they could ride the mechanical noose back up to the top and get at the prison cell.

"I hope we're not too late," muttered Jordan, as he moved into position to grab the noose, "it has been three days."

"I don't think Gehn would have wanted to kill her, Jordan," replied Brittany in a reassuring tone of voice. "He would have kept her alive so he could get to us."

Jordan considered this for a minute, then gripped the noose with renewed confidence. After a few seconds, the mechanism far above them rattled quietly and hummed as it pulled Jordan up.

It was slow going, but eventually Jordan reached the top and he was looking out across a short wooden plank to a pathway attached solidly to the rock wall. Set into the rock wall at the other end of the plank was a large round barred door, and sitting next to it was a single Maintainer, sound asleep.

Jordan climbed quietly off the noose and peered down at Maddy and Brittany. He motioned silently for them to not come up yet and to be quiet. Turning away from the two of them, he crept silently across the plank to the metal pathway. He glanced quickly inside the barred door and saw Rachel slumped against the stone wall, asleep but clearly still alive.

Having assured himself that this was not all for nothing, Jordan turned his attention to the slumbering Maintainer. Jordan moved silently around to stand in front of him, made a fist with his right hand and let fly. With Jordan's fist on one side of his temple and the solid rock cliff on the other side, it only took one punch for the Maintainer to slump over, out cold.

No longer worrying about making noise, Jordan hurried back over the plank to the gallows and beckoned Maddy and Brittany up. He then hurried back over to the round door and tapped on the bars lightly. Rachel stirred.

"I've told you already," she muttered, "I don't know where they are. Go away."

"You do know where they are now," replied Jordan.

Rachel's eyelids sprang open and she looked directly at Jordan.

"Jordan!" she hissed, getting to her feet and going over to the door. "Get this door open! The controls were down there," she added, pointing down along the pathway.

"I'll get them," said Maddy, who had appeared behind Jordan. She walked down the pathway and found a small iron wheel on the rock, bearing Gehn's classic symbol of a pentagon with a strange symbol inside it. It turned with a squeak, and the barred door slid open quietly. Rachel climbed out of the cell.

"I just had the most bizarre dream," she said rather hoarsely. "I must be delirious or something. I don't remember all of it, but I remember I saw five symbols, five shapes, a wooden eye, this cell, a room of stones, a book, and a statue of daggers. That's all I remember. What do you think it means?"

Jordan and Maddy shrugged. Brittany, however, did have an idea of what it meant.

"You say you saw this cell in your dream?" she asked Rachel.

"Yeah," replied Rachel as Brittany climbed into the cell. "So what?"

"So..." Brittany was running her hands over the wall. Fairly soon she seemed to find something, and traced a large shape in the wall.

"I think this part of the wall is supposed to move," she said.

"Brittany," said Maddy, "are you delirious as well?"

"Listen, Maddy," replied Brittany, "Jordan and I read in Gehn's journal that whenever he captured a rebel, he'd put him in this cell, go to get the Maintainers, and when he came back the rebel would be gone. Now, what better way would there be to have that happen than to have the entrance to the rebels' hideout here, in Gehn's prison cell?"

"Do you know, Brittany," said Jordan, "you might be right. But if that wall is the opening, how do we get in? It looks fairly solid to me."

"There must be a switch or something," muttered Brittany, surveying the cell. The only thing in the cell other than the (empty) plate on the floor was a small drain filled with brown slime.

Brittany, never really afraid to dip into the unknown (so to speak), flicked the cover off the drain and stuck her hand down into the drain. The other three recoiled from this action, but it wasn't long before Brittany gave a cry of victory and yanked a narrow handle up out of the sludge. It gave a soft click, then the section of wall that Brittany had pointed out earlier began to slide backwards with an unnerving grating sound.

The four of them crept into the newly-opened pathway silently. Fire-marble lamps glowed along the walls, and it wasn't long before they came to a large room dominated by a large circle of stones.

"This is the next thing I saw in my dream," said Rachel in an awed whisper. "Do you think -"

"That this is the entrance to the rebel hideout?" finished Jordan. "Yes, Rach. That's exactly what I think it is, and I'd guess that to open the hideout we have to press a certain few of these stones in a certain order."

"Well, it must be something to do with..." Brittany trailed off, and her mouth opened slightly as she started to remember something.

"Do you recall what we saw in that classroom on the lake?" asked Brittany, after she had come out of her trance. "We saw that toy with the people being eaten by the fish. When we spun the wheel, it showed a symbol like the ones on the back of the eyes. Then whichever of the little people's turn it was would lower a few steps towards the fish. The number of steps it lowered was different for each of the symbols. I think the symbols must be numbers."

"Of course!" exclaimed Rachel, then massaged her throat, wincing, before continuing in a more measured voice. "So the symbol on the one near the tram, the frog, was... two?"

"No, it was three," corrected Jordan, also remembering. "The beetle noise, the one in the stone pool, was two."

"And the one at the base of the knife, the sunner creatures," added Maddy, "was four."

"The one in the rocks, the whale-fish thing," continued Brittany excitedly, "was five."

"Which leaves the last one, which Gehn says was in the lake," finished Rachel, "as one."

"So what creature goes with that?" asked Maddy. "We didn't get to listen to the sound."

"I think," said Brittany, "that if it was in the water it would make a bubbling noise. Like a fish. Like this fish, in fact," she said, indicating the stone Jordan was standing next to, which had a silhouette of a fish on it.

Jordan pressed on the stone. It slid down into the ground easily, making a low grating noise as it did so.

"So the second one was the beetle," continued Jordan, "which would be over there."

They continued finding the silhouettes until finally they had four of the five pressed down in what they were sure was the right order and were standing in front of the fifth stone, bearing the image of the whale-fish.

"Would you like to do the honours, Rachel?" said Brittany, gesturing to the stone. "It was your delirious dream that led us here, after all."

Rachel smiled at Brittany, stepped forward and pressed on the stone.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, however, the room suddenly grew inexplicably hotter. The water in the channels on the wall bulged, flowing down the channels to surround the door, leaving the far wall blank but for the plaque with the dagger symbol. Even as the four of them watched, the plaque slid smoothly and silently up into the rock and a small slab of rock slid out from underneath it.

Cautiously, Rachel approached the wall and looked down at the slab of rock. Sitting on the rock was a book, charred and burnt around the edges but still intact. The left page was blank, but sitting on the right page was a small slab of some sort of translucent crystal. Through the crystal Rachel could see a slowly shifting image of a huge dark crater with a lake in the bottom of it. The lake was dominated by a huge hive-like structure with lights on in it.

Still cautious, Rachel laid her right hand on the translucent crystal, and the now very familiar ringing hum of a link sounded in her ears as the room of the stones vanished into swirling blackness...

* * *

Atrus put his pen down and wiped the sweat from his brow. That was a close call. If he hadn't noticed that mistake in time, well... he didn't want to think about it, really.

He looked at his watch. "My friends must be making progress by now... I hope."

* * *

The cool twilight air of the crater dock was a welcome change from the humid climate of Riven, Maddy noticed as she stepped out of the air onto the dock in what they now all knew must be the rebels' world. The huge hive-like structure dominated their sight, but they saw no way over to it.

The four of them turned around. There was a large cave behind them, bare except for a large statue at the far end. The statue had dozens of daggers piercing the sides of it, and was holding a book in its outstretched hands.

As they approached the statue, they saw the slowly shifting image of the room of stones that they had just left shining through the translucent crystal on the book.

Maddy gave a sudden cry, slapping her hand to her neck and slumping to the ground unconscious. Before any of the other three could do more than look at her vaguely, Brittany clapped a hand to her neck and fell to the ground as well. Jordan and Rachel spun around.

Standing behind them were two rebels – one dressed in white, one in red and black. The one in red and black was holding a blowgun in his fingers. He blew hard again, and Jordan collapsed to the ground next to Rachel. Before she had a chance to react, she felt a sting on the side of her neck, then she began to feel very dizzy very quickly. The cave and the two rebels blurred out of focus and suddenly she was falling down a long, dark tunnel...


	8. Coat, Part 1

**7 – Coat, Part 1**

The sun, perched high up in his seat far above the desert, was so distracted by his old enemy growing slowly larger on the horizon that he almost didn't see the gate of the desert compound far below him open. He glanced down and saw one of the strangest things he had seen for a long while.

Striding across the volcano compound in the direction of the house was a man. The sun didn't recognise him, but he was obviously rather strange. Despite the heat of the day, he was clad in a long black coat that covered a black suit and tie, with black boots covering his feet and a black fedora pulled low over his head. Nobody in their right mind would wear a getup like that into the desert, not even in December.

The man glanced briefly up at the sun, and his glasses flashed in the light. He didn't seem bothered by the heat, the sun noted as the man lowered his head again and walked into the house.

Once he was inside the house, the man didn't remove his coat or his hat, but rather went straight to the kitchen. He seemed completely nonplussed at the sight of the book still lying open on the table after five months, and barely even blinked at the animated picture of the island dock on the right page. He sat down at the table and pulled a flask out of his pocket. After drinking from it quickly, he settled himself back in the chair.

"Right," he muttered to himself.

* * *

Falling, falling... and then the blackness was gone, and Rachel was gasping for breath. Rain stung her skin and the wind whipped at her face, blowing her hair into her eyes. She tore them open.

She was standing on the top of a cliff, looking out at a stormy sea. A colossal thunderstorm was raging above her, with huge flashes of lightning illuminating the world every now and again. After her eyes had gotten used to the semi-darkness, she turned around to work out where she was, and immediately wished she hadn't.

What she saw was horrifically changed from the last time she had seen it, but it was still recognisable as being what it was. She was standing at the lip of the crater of Crater Island, but it wasn't the Crater Island she knew. Below her, she could see the crater. The lake had swelled massively, submerging the boiler and the log chipper. The two entrances into the cave containing the log cart were just visible above the water.

Rachel was completely speechless. Someone else, however, was not.

"Not a pretty sight, is it?"

Rachel whirled around. Standing four or five feet away from her was a tall man, clad in a black longcoat which was swirling in the wind around a black suit and tie. He was wearing black boots which covered his feet and a black fedora was miraculously perched on his head despite the wind howling around him. He seemed to be completely ignoring the howling wind and rain, and the swirling coat didn't seem to be getting wet at all.

Rachel gaped at him, her brain still struggling to work out what was going on. He smiled and tipped his hat to her. This, if nothing else, made her realise that this was not an illusion, and she finally regained the power of speech.

"Who -" she started, then her brain stumbled. "Who – who are you?"

"My name is not important," replied the man, still looking at her with a slightly amused look on his face.

"Do I – do I know you?"

"Yes, but like I said, my name is not important, and you haven't seen me for years."

Rachel was going to press him further, but another clap of thunder made her decide there were more important things to be getting on with asking.

"What's going on?"

"Ah," said the man, a slight smile crossing his face, "I was wondering when you were going to ask me that. Yes... well, let me see if you can answer your own question, and save me the bother. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I..." Rachel stared at him. "I remember being hit with a dart on the rebels' world."

"Good."

"So this... this is a dream?"

"Very good," smiled the man. "Well, it's more of a nightmare... a premonition, I suppose."

"A... premonition?"

"Oh yes. You see," continued the man, walking slowly over to stand next to her, "this is what Riven will be like if you four don't complete your task, Rachel."

"How... but how?" Rachel's brain had decided that it really wasn't worth it. This man might as well do her thinking for her.

"Ah well, you see, Atrus really believed that this world would be completely destroyed if he stopped writing, but as a matter of fact, his corrections had fixed the world... or at least, prevented complete quantum collapse. This is what actually would happen to it if he stopped writing... which in this instance, he did... almost three months ago.

"You see, once Atrus realised that Riven had had its chips, he came here himself in a desperate attempt to rescue Catherine and you four, and ran into Gehn. Gehn shot him and took his linking book. True to his word, Gehn had finished a new home for the villagers, and he moved them there, then abandoned Riven to its fate. He destroyed four of the linking books leading to his world and disappeared through the fifth. He still lords over the people of Riven, but now he has access to the D'ni city again. But anyway, I'm getting off track.

"So Gehn shot Atrus and took his linking book. He then proceeded to throw Atrus' body into the ocean so that you four wouldn't find it, and got out of here. So that left the four of you stranded here, with no way out."

"And that's..." Rachel swallowed, regaining her composure. "And that's what this is?"

"Not quite..." said the man, "there's a bit more. You're not going to like it."

He laid a hand on her shoulder and spun his coat around them. The coat blocked out light momentarily, and when it lowered the two of them were standing on the Temple Island. This, also, wasn't a pretty sight.

"Is this it?" asked Rachel.

"No," replied the man. "Come with me."

He strode off in the direction of the link-in point. Rachel, seeing no alternative course, followed him warily. He stopped in front of the telescope and turned to let her catch up. Once she had, he pointed.

A weather-beaten and very ragged figure stood in front of the telescope, facing away from them. The figure was bent over something on the ground.

"Who -"

Rachel didn't finish her question, just looked at the man. He put his hand on her shoulder again and steered her around the figure to look at what was on the ground.

Three small mounds in the ground were all that made this spot particularly interesting. Each one had two sticks stuck into it in the shape of a cross, and each cross had a single letter etched crudely into it. The cross on the far left, closest to where Rachel and the man were standing, bore the letter "M". The cross in the middle bore the letter "B". And the cross on the far right, the one that the ragged figure was bent over, bore the letter "J".

"You can't guess?" asked the man.

"No... what are they? And who is that?" It was clear that the ragged figure could not hear them.

The man sighed. "The letters M, B and J. These are graves, Rachel. The graves of three people who died in this place, three people who had never thought, three months ago when they came here, that this is how they would meet their end."

Rachel was staring at him now. "Surely -"

"I'm afraid so. That's Maddy's grave. That's Brittany's grave. That's Jordan's grave. And that," the man finished with a sigh, pointing at the ragged figure who was finally beginning to straighten up from the graves, "is you, Rachel."

Rachel gripped the man's arm tightly as the ragged figure turned to face the two of them. Rachel looked straight at her future self, but her future self looked straight through her and started to cry.

"But..." whispered Rachel, then she choked and couldn't finish the sentence. There was a silent pause, punctuated only by the wind and the ragged future Rachel's sobs.

"How... how did this happen?" said Rachel to the man. "How..."

"After the villagers left, the four of you were alone here for two months. It was driving you mad. And it took its toll on Maddy first. She climbed up on top of the dome and threw herself off it."

"No..."

"Yes. She couldn't cope with it. The three of you buried her here, in the most sheltered place you could find. You were stranded on this island, of course. The bridge to the Crater Island and the tram over to the Jungle Island were destroyed by waves. But anyway, you'd only just gotten over one funeral when you had to deal with another... Brittany did the same thing. Two funerals in as many weeks."

"But what about -"

"Jordan? Well, he promised to you after the second funeral that he wouldn't kill himself. And he didn't. Brittany's funeral was about a month ago, and Jordan stayed with you for three weeks after that. And then you were out searching for a way off this world, a book that Gehn overlooked, perhaps, and something struck each of you. The realisation of how alone you were struck you... the thunderstorm – or more accurately, the lightning – struck Jordan."

"Jordan... got struck by lightning?" Rachel's voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Your one, tiny consolation was that he didn't suffer," replied the man. "Struck by lightning right on the top of his head... he was dead before he realised his hair was on fire. You buried him next to Brittany and Maddy, and then you were alone, and you have been for a week."

Both Emilys were sobbing now – the future Rachel in the ragged clothes was pressed against the cliff face, and the present Rachel was sobbing into the shoulder of the man's coat, which was strangely still perfectly dry. The man put his hand on her shoulder and spun his coat again. When Rachel raised her head from the man's sleeve, they were standing on the upper balcony of the Plateau Island. Below them, the plateau had become a lake, with only the highest points of the five islands showing from the black water.

The man spun his coat again and suddenly they were standing outside the prison cell on the Jungle Island. Below them, the Village Lake had swelled to submerge most of the lower pathways, and the crude houses that they could see had crumbled into ruin.

Another spin of the coat took them back to the lip of the crater where they had started. The man squeezed Rachel on the shoulder and she looked up at him.

"Just remember one thing – this hasn't happened yet. Even though this is ultimately Riven's fate, you don't have to be stuck here to see it. Just complete your task... complete your task." He released her shoulder and took a step backwards.

"Wait!" she cried hoarsely. He paused.

"This is all a nightmare, right? If this is my nightmare, then... who are you?"

The man smiled. "A friend, Rachel. A friend who wants to stop this from happening to you."

"But -"

The man smiled at her once more, then spun his coat around himself and vanished into thin air.

Rachel sat down heavily. She felt dizzy again. The crater blurred around her, and then she was falling through blackness again...

* * *

Brittany staggered under a sudden blast of rain and wind. She could hear water splashing against wood, and the groaning of timbers, like a ship. She opened her eyes and saw a horribly familiar sight.

She was standing on the dock on Myst. However, it wasn't the Myst that she remembered. A colossal thunderstorm was raging over the island, and the source of the groaning timbers was easily traceable to the capsized ship that had obviously caused the large hole in the dock.

Brittany walked slowly over to the stone steps leading off the dock. Bypassing the cog plateau and the planetarium, she walked through the long, overgrown grass and up to the library. She stopped dead in the doorway.

The attractive timber of the library had decayed to a horrible shade of grey. The burn marks on the two shelves were still clearly visible. The shelf at the far end of the library was empty. The map of the island sat broken on the floor of the library, and the two paintings had disappeared, leaving only a broken frame. And finally, the fireplace was half rotated away out of sight, inaccessible. The only thing that was intact was the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and even that was looking very tarnished.

"Not really what you expected, is it?"

Brittany spun around. Sitting on the cracked rock of the now empty stone basin was a man wearing a black longcoat over a black suit and tie, with his feet clad in black boots and a black fedora perched on his head.

"Who are you?"

"My name is not important," replied the man. "And in response to your next question, yes, you do know me, but you haven't seen me for many years."

"So... what's going on here?"

"Ah," replied the man, "I thought you might ask that sooner rather than later. Well, as you may have guessed from the rebels shooting darts at you, this is a nightmare... a premonition."

"A... premonition? You mean this is actually going to happen?"

"Well, only if the four of you fail to complete your current task... which in this instance, you have. Right about now, the four of you are buried on a ruined Riven, and because Atrus was killed by Gehn when he went there to look for you, Myst has been abandoned... and this is what's happened to it. About forty, maybe fifty years have gone by."

"So..." Brittany's brain was hurriedly working itself around this, "this is... our fault?"

The man cocked his head on the side. "Depends on how you look at it."

Brittany waited, but the man did not continue. Instead, he walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Are you afraid of heights at all?"

Brittany looked strangely at the man. "No..."

"Good."

With a flick of his wrist, the man spun his coat around them. Everything momentarily disappeared, and when the coat lowered the two of them were standing, inexplicably, on the roof of the tower. From here, Brittany observed, they could see the entire island, and the entire island looked to be in very dire straits. Indeed, the capsized ship near the dock was just the beginning. The trees of the forest were twisted, with only a handful of leaves clinging to the branches. The clock tower was set to read 7:25, and the bridge of cogs was jammed halfway between up and down. The island in general was a ruin, and the difference between this and the Myst that she knew was horrific.

"Really not very nice, is it?" The man was observing Brittany's reaction to this sight with one hand still on his coat in case a quick exit was needed, however Brittany was stunned into silence. She looked first at the forest, then the dock, then at the man. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

The man flicked his wrist again, and the two of them were standing in the library again. The man dropped his hand from Brittany's shoulder and stepped back.

"Just remember... this hasn't happened yet. You can stop this from happening if you complete your task."

He took a further step back. Brittany opened her mouth again, but still nothing coherent or indeed comprehensible came out, only something which sounded like a cross between a mouse and a dying frog. The man smiled again, flicked his wrist and vanished with a swirl of black fabric.

Brittany stepped out of the library into the rain and looked around frantically. The island was deserted again. She rounded the island once, twice, maybe three times before collapsing onto the floor of the library with her head swimming. The library blurred out of focus before dissolving into a whirl of grey, and Brittany was falling through cold blackness again...


	9. Coat, Part 2

**8 – Coat, Part 2**

Jordan stumbled as his feet sank into the ground and he was hit square in the face by a blast of wind and sand. He spluttered, as he had had his mouth open. Spitting the sand in his mouth out onto the ground and shielding his eyes, he looked around in a hurry.

He was standing on the windward side of the volcano that shielded the rest of the desert compound from the worst of the weather, and right now, the weather seemed pretty bad. The sky was choked with dark clouds, and a biting wind whipped the sand into the air constantly. The compound itself had changed a lot. The sand flying through the air made it difficult to see more than a short way ahead, but Jordan stumbled forward to look at the other side of the compound.

From his vantage point up on the volcano, Jordan could see the battered remnants of his house through the swirling sand. He ran down the side of the volcano, slipping in the swirling sand every now and again. He vaulted the fence that surrounded the volcano and ran over the house as fast as he dared in these conditions.

The house, he observed with growing horror, was in a state of semi-ruin. Sand was banked up against the door, but Jordan managed to pull it open. Inside, although he was sheltered from the wind outside, was not a big improvement on outside. Some sand had blown in through cracks in the windows, and the furniture and floor was covered in a fine layer of the sand.

Jordan walked slowly through the lounge room and into the kitchen. There was no sand in here, but instead everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs hung like streamers from the ceiling, and the odd spider was wandering around the tangle of webs. The table was covered in dust as well, and that included the linking book leading to Myst that still sat open on the table. A dull glow shone through the dust that covered the book, showing Jordan that the book was probably the only thing in the house that still functioned properly.

He turned around to leave the room and took a step backwards, slightly startled. Standing in the doorway was a man wearing a long black coat over a black suit and tie. On his head was a black fedora.

Jordan was speechless. The man smiled and tipped his hat to him.

"I see you have found what used to be your house," said the man. "Not a pretty sight at all."

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" said Jordan's brain. The sentence, however, got lost on the way to his mouth, and came out as a strange sound which, oddly, meant "cobwebs" in D'ni.

"Yes," replied the man, "there are a lot of cobwebs."

"Now look here," said Jordan's brain again, "what's going on? I walk in here after who knows how long and the place has fallen to pieces! Come on, out with it!" Once again, however, his mouth failed to repeat this. What Jordan actually said was, "What... who...?"

The man smiled again. "Let's start with 'who', shall we? My name is not important, and you haven't seen me for many years. Moving on to 'what', well, this is what is known as a nightmare... a premonition, I suppose."

Jordan's brain finally managed to open a direct path to his mouth. "A premonition? Are you saying that my house is actually going to end up looking like this?"

"I am," replied the man, "at least, if you and the other three fail to complete your task... which in this particular instance, you have. You failed in your endeavour to capture Gehn, and when Atrus went to Riven to try to find you, Gehn found him first. The four of you never made it home... and this is what home ended up looking like, forty, maybe fifty years on."

The man put his hand on Jordan's shoulder and flicked his wrist, spinning his long coat around them. When it lowered, they were standing outside again, next to what appeared to be a small tree growing out of the sand.

"Recognise this?"

Jordan's brain spun wildly through his memories and settled on one.

"The cleft?"

"Correct," replied the man, no longer smiling. "Filled with sand."

The man flicked his wrist again and returned the two of them to the house, this time to the bedroom. There was even more dust in here than in the kitchen; in fact, the dust here was thicker than anywhere else in the house.

Jordan attempted to say something intelligent, but all that came out was "cobwebs" in D'ni again.

"Yes," replied the man, ever patient, "there are a lot of cobwebs."

"Why is this room so much dustier than the others?" Jordan managed.

"Ah, well," replied the man, "you see, when Maddy and Brittany showed up here looking for you, the bedroom was the only room they didn't look in, out of politeness to you and Rachel. Plus, I suppose they thought that if you were in there you'd come out sooner or later. One way or another, this room hasn't been entered for over forty years."

The furniture of the bedroom, which Jordan remembered he chose for the attractive timber that it was made out of, had dulled to a sickly grey colour. What was left of the clothes that were in the wardrobe had long been covered with ever-thickening layers of dust.

Before the bewildered Jordan could make any further comment, the man flicked his wrist and returned them to the kitchen again. He released Jordan's shoulder and stepped back.

"Now just remember – this hasn't happened yet. This will only happen if you fail to complete your task... so as long as you succeed, this will not happen. Complete your task... complete your task."

The man took another step backwards and gripped the hem of his coat with his right hand.

"Cobwebs," said Jordan in D'ni, despite the fact that his brain had formed an intelligent sentence.

"Yes," replied the man with a slight smile, "there are a lot of cobwebs." He flicked his wrist again and vanished, leaving Jordan alone in the abandoned kitchen.

Jordan ran outside and looked around frantically. Once again, the desert compound was empty. The colossal shape of the volcano loomed against the dark sky. Jordan leapt over the fence and climbed up the side of the volcano. From the top, he surveyed the blasted landscape, turning in circles to view it all until he was overcome by dizziness and had to sit down. The grey sky blurred around him and the desert vanished in a whirl of blackness, leaving him falling down through emptiness...

* * *

Maddy blinked numerous times to clear her head as the gift of sight returned to her. Her ears, filtering out the persistent buzzing that was filling them at the moment, detected a steady pattering noise, and the occasional loud crash. Her eyes, still struggling to regain normal functionality, were currently showing her what appeared to be a large amount of grey, punctuated by the odd shade of black. She shook her head, and the seething mass of grey reformed itself into what appeared to be a room... a rather familiar room.

She turned herself around, just to make sure that her brain was functioning properly, but only succeeded in falling on the floor. She was staring up at a large chandelier, which was filling the room with a dim, almost eerie light. Once she was sure that her brain, ears and eyes were all functioning properly, Maddy got to her feet and looked around.

She was standing in a room that had a very similar design to the Myst library, however it wasn't the Myst library that she was familiar with. The Myst library that she remembered, thought Maddy, was clean, made of attractive brown timber with a number of pictures adorning the walls. This, although it was the Myst library, appeared to be made of a dull grey timber, and the pictures that may have adorned the walls once were cracked and broken. Nothing was the same as it had been.

Maddy turned to the door and stepped out of the library. The library was just the start of it – the entire island lay in ruins. Down near the dock, the ship had capsized completely, and torn a fairly large hole in the dock as well. The stone basin in front of her was cracked and empty, and the model of the ship sitting in there lay on its side. The once magnificent trees of the forest stood bare of all leaves, and the rain poured down over it all. Well, that explained the pattering noise, anyway.

"Not a pretty sight at all, is it?"

With her not fully reliable instincts taking control temporarily, Maddy swung around and brought her right fist swinging up in the direction of the voice. The man standing behind her, however, had anticipated this reaction and dodged the blow easily.

With reason reclaiming control of her brain, Maddy took a step back and studied the man standing in the door of the library. He was wearing a long black coat over the top of a black suit and tie, and a black hat was perched on his head.

"I'm afraid that you're getting rather predictable, Maddy," said the man, smiling.

"And who are you to say that?" replied Maddy.

"My name is not important," replied the man, "and you haven't seen me for many years."

"Your voice seems kinda familiar," said Maddy, looking carefully at the man.

"Yes, well, out of the four of you, you knew me best."

"So, creepy man in black," continued Maddy, "what's going on here?"

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," replied the man, still smiling. "Well, you are currently standing in the middle of a nightmare... a premonition, if you prefer."

"A premonition?" replied Maddy.

"Yes... a foretelling of the future," translated the man.

"So Myst is actually going to look like this?"

"Well, only if the four of you fail to complete your current task... which in this instance, you have. You failed to capture Gehn, you failed to free Catherine, and you failed to escape from Riven, which is where the four of you are currently buried. About forty, maybe fifty years have gone by."

"But what about -"

"Atrus? Well, he went to Riven himself to try to find and rescue you four and Catherine, but Gehn found him and shot him. We'll refrain from going into great detail about that."

The man put his hand on Maddy's shoulder, grasped the hem of his coat with his other hand and flicked his wrist, sending the coat spinning around the two of them. Light and sound were momentarily stifled by the coat, and when it lowered they were standing on the roof of the tower.

Maddy automatically went to take a step back, but the man caught her by the shoulder before she did.

"I'd advise you not to do that," said the man conversationally, "we are fifty feet off the ground."

Maddy moved back next to the man and surveyed the island. It was not a pretty sight. On top of what she had already seen, the wheels on the west coast that controlled the clock tower were broken, and the tower itself read 7:25. The bridge of cogs that led across the coast to the tower itself appeared to be jammed halfway between down and up. The rocket was weathered, with the paint beaten and battered, and the door sat permanently open.

The man flicked his wrist again, and then the two of them were standing on the top of a large rock in the middle of a stormy sea.

"Now where are we?" asked Maddy. In response, the man turned around and pointed. Maddy followed his arm and saw, only a hundred metres away, the tattered remnants of a large ship sat impaled on a large rock. Very near it was what appeared to be the battered and put-upon shell of an old lighthouse.

"Stoneship?" Maddy asked.

"Right first time," replied the man grimly. "Selenitic, Mechanical and Channelwood suffered similar fates, so I won't show you them."

A large wave crashed on the side of the rock, sending a wave of water towards the two of them. The man reacted instantly, flicking his wrist and sending his coat spinning around them. When it lowered, they were standing in the log cabin on Myst. The man dropped his hand from Maddy's shoulder.

"Just remember one thing – this hasn't happened yet. So long as you complete your task, this will hopefully not happen." He took a step back.

"Wait, wait wait," said Maddy. The man stopped.

"How are we supposed to do that? We've got nothing."

"You've got Atrus' journal," replied the man, "and you've got each other. And I think you'll find that it won't be long before you get a little more help," he added.

"But -"

"Good luck," said the man. He flicked his wrist and vanished.

Maddy pushed the door of the cabin open and walked out into the pouring rain. She walked slowly up the path that led to the library, taking in every detail along the way. Once she reached the library, however, she was beginning to feel rather dizzy. She grabbed at the door frame to steady herself, but only succeeded in falling over again with her head swimming. The chandelier seemed to taunt her for a second before it blurred out of focus, leaving Maddy falling down through blackness again...


	10. Dagger

**9 – Dagger**

Silence. Warmth. Dry.

Rachel blinked a few times to clear her sight as she slowly regained consciousness. She was staring up at a rock ceiling, unadorned except for a single lantern illuminating the room with the soft yellow glow of a fire marble. She sat up.

She and the other three (who were still out cold) were in a not exactly spacious stone cavern. On the small stone table which was the only piece of furniture in the room was a small stone bowl, and that was all there was to see. Two narrow passages led off the cavern.

Rachel got unsteadily to her feet and walked over to one of the passages. It was very short, and ended at a tall, locked gate. The Moiety, it seemed, didn't exactly trust the four strangers who had found their way to this world.

Rachel turned around and went back to the other passage. It, too, was short, and ended at a small hole in the wall overlooking the linking cave. Sticking her head out the window, Rachel looked down to see if this was a possible escape route.

"At least thirty, maybe forty feet sheer drop to the lake," muttered Rachel to herself, "depth... anyone's guess. Not worth the risk." She turned around and went back to the main cavern where the other three were and knelt down next to Jordan.

"Jordan?" she hissed quietly. He made no response, so she slapped him in the face. "Wake up!" He did not.

Rachel pulled her flask out of her pocket. It was half full of water from Antares, not the strange Rivenese water that reacted weirdly to heat. After drinking from it quickly, she poured a few drops onto Jordan's face. He spluttered suddenly, and his eyes flicked open.

"What – who – cobwebs – black coat – oh, hi, Rach," Jordan said with a single breath. "Where are we?"

"At a guess," replied Rachel, "I'd say we were still on the rebels' world, but they've locked us up. I don't think they trust us."

Jordan got to his feet with a groan and pulled out his own flask. After drinking from it, he went over to Brittany and splashed water on her face as well. She also woke up with a splutter, as did Maddy after Rachel had splashed water on her face.

"So," said Jordan to Rachel, "chances of us escaping from this cavern are...?"

"Depends," replied Rachel. "Do you want to get out alive?"

"That would probably be useful," replied Brittany, rubbing the back of her head.

"In that case," continued Rachel, "practically zero. The gate down there is locked fast and the window over there leads out to a forty-foot drop into the lake."

They fell silent for a minute, before Rachel suddenly remembered something. "Jordan... what did you just say about a black coat?"

"Oh, yeah," replied Jordan, "I had the strangest nightmare whilst I was out cold. I was in the desert compound, and it was abandoned and ruined. There was this weird creepy guy in a black coat and hat showing me around."

"Really?" asked Rachel. "I had a nightmare about Riven being abandoned and ruined, and the four of us stranded there, and there was a weird creepy guy in a black coat and hat showing me around as well."

"That is pretty weird," put in Brittany, "because I had a nightmare about Myst being ruined and abandoned, and there was a weird creepy guy in a black coat and hat showing me around as well."

"I had a nightmare about a ruined Myst as well," added Maddy, "and there was a weird creepy guy in a black coat and hat showing me around too. He said that I knew him, but I hadn't seen him for many years."

"That's what he said to me as well," said Jordan, Brittany and Rachel simultaneously.

"Who is he, then?" said Maddy. I didn't recognise him... I thought his voice was a bit familiar, but I wasn't sure."

"Maybe someone from the Post Office?" ventured Jordan.

"I don't know anyone who works at the Post Office," replied Brittany, "except you, Jordan. Plus, we've only been away from home for six months, not 'many years'. He couldn't be from the Post Office... or from the council, for that matter."

"Well, maybe he was someone from school that we all knew," offered Maddy.

"That could be anyone, Maddy," replied Rachel. "Now that you mention it, though, you're probably right."

"He's about the same age as us, then..." mused Jordan.

"He was wearing a ring," volunteered Rachel.

"Wedding ring?"

"No, just a ring. Plain silver."

There was silence for a bit longer, then it was broken by a rather unexpected sound – the clatter of the lock on the gate being opened. The four of them scrambled to their feet, but no guards entered... instead, a woman clothed from head to foot in red and black entered the room carrying something wrapped in red cloth. She stopped in the mouth of the tunnel and looked at the four of them for a second, then started to speak quickly in Rivenese.

Brittany was translating as best she could, but her fragmented understanding of Rivenese was barely enough to make sense of what the woman was saying. "Catherine... said... you... give... no, take... Catherine said you take... these... don't know that word... something about Gehn... book... no, books... you'll... no, I'll... return... smaller. No, shortly. Catherine said you take these books; I'll return shortly. That's the best I can do."

The woman had taken two books out of the red cloth and placed them on the table. She left in quite a hurry.

Rachel stepped forward and picked up the books. The one on top was the smaller of them. It was long and thin, with a pale cream cover. She flicked it open. "This is a journal, and there's a note in it from Catherine." Rachel extracted the note and glanced at it. "This is practically illegible... the woman is clearly disturbed. See if you can read this, Brittany." She passed the note and the journal to Brittany and looked down at the second book.

The second book was a more standard shape and size, and was bound in dark green leather. It was thick – much thicker than the journal – and when Rachel flicked it open, she saw pages upon pages of D'ni script. At the back of the book was a dark, slowly shifting picture of the D'ni cavern.

"I've got the first two lines," said Brittany, and read from the paper: "'I write quickly from my prison. Nelah will return your book which the Moiety intercepted upon your arrival.'"

Rachel held up the second book. "That would be this... the prison book that Atrus gave us."

"So we've finally got what we need to capture Gehn," said Jordan with a satisfied smile. "Well... happy birthday, Rach."

Rachel froze. Maddy raised her eyebrows. Jordan's smile widened. Brittany looked at her watch.

"Good call, Jordan," she said with a smile.

"It's my birthday?" said Rachel, sounding rather breathless.

"Yes."

"My eighteenth birthday?"

"Yes."

"And I didn't even realise?"

"No."

Silence. After a few seconds, Rachel came out of her trance very suddenly, ran straight at Jordan and threw her arms around him, causing him to fall rather heavily on the floor.

"Steady on, Rach, there's a time and a place for everything. And my head hurts enough as it is."

Before Rachel could make any reply to this, the gate clattered open again and the woman Nelah came back into the cavern. She stopped in the mouth of the tunnel again. Rachel and Jordan scrambled hastily up off the floor, looking rather embarrassed.

Nelah began to speak again, and as she did she unwrapped whatever she had in the red cloth this time. Brittany switched into translation mode again.

"Good... now... more... book... don't know that one... leave... something about Gehn again... something about Catherine... good luck. Sorry, that's the best I can do."

By this time, Nelah had left again, leaving another book on the table, this one open. A slab of translucent crystal sat over the right page of the book, and through it the four of them could see a slowly shifting image of the room of stones on Jungle Island.

"After me?" Rachel asked. Without waiting for an answer, she stepped forward, touched the book and watched the cavern dissolve around her...

* * *

"_You let her escape?!_"

Gehn had not been in a good mood even before Guild Master Tinen had come with a message from Grand Master Neil informing him of the latest development. Tinen, shaking with fear, was wise enough to keep silent.

"She was the bait to catch the other three!" shouted Gehn. "They will be on their guard now; we won't be able to recapture any of them easily!"

Tinen was still silent, merely watching Gehn. Gehn stopped moving and glared at the Guild Master.

"Wise move, Guild Master. One word wrong and you would have gone the same way as your colleague Frances."

Well, at least Gehn had stopped shouting, thought Tinen. What he said was, "Yes, my lord."

"Go back to Neil and tell him to meet me at the prison cell in ten minutes." Gehn's voice sent a very clear message to Tinen. I'm in a very bad mood, it said. No arguments, or you'll argue with my gun.

"Yes, my lord." Tinen linked out.

Gehn seized his gun from the side of the desk and donned his coat and gloves. He then sank down into his chair, poured himself a stiff drink and downed it in one. After a minute's worth of careful contemplation, he rose from his chair and lowered the cage, making straight for the Jungle Island linking book.

* * *

Rachel held up her hand to the other three as they approached the exit leading back into the prison cell. She put her ear to the bricks and listened intently.

"All clear," she whispered, "but let's move quick. It won't be long until Gehn shows up."

They opened the wall quickly. The cell was empty and silent except for the wind. The four of the darted out onto the catwalk and ran for the ladder leading down to the pathway around the lake. Once they were down there, they ran for the tunnel that they knew led up to the canyon, where they could get to the jungle. They'd be safe there.

Maddy pushed open the jungle gate, but suddenly the four of them saw something that was thoroughly unwelcome. The dome on top of the pillar was slowing to a halt, and then it flipped backwards, revealing the shiny metal interior that they'd discovered lay inside the domes. Out of the dome stepped a tall, grey-haired figure holding a long cane... Gehn had already found out about the escape.

The four of them didn't risk freezing in terror... instead, they closed the gate and ran for the clearing. Maddy, who was in the lead, turned left into the clearing and dove for the log cart. For once, the others did not complain, cramming in after her. Miraculously, they all managed to fit, and Jordan's elbow found the lever on the wall, sending them shooting off down the tunnel seconds before Grand Master Neil hurried into the clearing from the path leading down to the Dome Island tram station.

* * *

Gehn paced back and forth in front of the prison cell. Grand Master Neil stood, flanked by two of his best Guild Masters, waiting anxiously.

"... and you let her escape. You are fools! Dunderheads! Blundering oafs! The Maintainers' Guild in D'ni would never have made such a mistake! Whose idea was it to put Guildsman Porter on night duty? Only the best guards should be put on night duty, not fools who fall asleep if nobody shows up for twenty minutes!"

"Are they still on the island, my lord?" ventured one of the Guild Masters.

"_What do you think?!_ Of course they're not still on the island!" shouted Gehn in reply, then he calmed down. "All right... Grand Master Neil, listen very carefully, because you dunderheads can't be allowed to make another mistake. You – and you personally – will go and fetch Grand Master May of the Educators and Grand Master Meader of the Surveyors, and the three of you will meet me in the temple on Dome Island in ten minutes."

"My lord -"

"_Don't argue!_" Gehn roared, turning to look Grand Master Neil right in the eye. Being far less brave than Guild Master Frances had been, he cowered under his gaze.

"Yes, my lord." He disappeared off towards the Guild offices.

"And you two," Gehn said, addressing the Guild Masters, "will get back to your duties."

"Yes, my lord." They ran off.

Gehn stepped into the cell and picked up the small dagger lying on the floor. Once again, he thought, the Black Moiety are taunting my continued failure to find their hideout. Never mind... they would perish when the Fifth Age fell apart. But the strangers... he wanted them for himself. Maybe the Maintainers couldn't flush them out, but with the help of the Surveyors and the Educators, maybe they'd have more luck. Oh, and to think he was so close, and that stupid Guildsman Porter had let her slip through his fingers! I'd punish him, thought Gehn, but as he already has serious concussion and a cracked skull, I suppose I should give him a break.

Gehn stepped out of the cell and strode down towards the ladder. He glanced quickly at his timer. Five minutes, and the Grand Masters would receive their orders in the temple.

* * *

Rachel, Maddy, Jordan and Brittany got to their feet painfully after another nauseating ride on the log cart. This time, however, some good had come out of it; Jordan had had a sudden realisation of exactly what they had to do next.

"Those domes, and probably the large dome as well, are the key to getting to Gehn's world. If we want to capture him, we have to go there."

"And how, exactly, do we convince him to use the book?" Brittany was dubious.

"Well, obviously the point of making it appear to link to D'ni was to trick Gehn into using it, but he'll still be suspicious. How is he going to check that the book functions as we say it will? He'll ask us to use it first."

"But that's suicide!" Now Brittany was even more dubious.

"That's what I thought, but then I remembered that we might be able to trick Gehn into using it. I read it in Atrus' journal..." He pulled Atrus' journal out of his pocket and flicked through it. "Ah! Here it is... listen."

* * *

_{Atrus' journal, 20.5.17}_

_I think I have the solution. Why it did not occur to me sooner, I do not know – unless the idea of it had been pushed out with the thought of my sons._

_A prison book -_

_Many years ago, during a hunting expedition through the ruins of D'ni, I chanced upon a formula for a most unusual type of book. Unfortunately, due to the fact that my father was then in the habit of confiscating my discoveries, I was forced to leave it behind. Years later, however, as part of my efforts to protect the vulnerable worlds linked to the books in my library, I was pleased to find that I could still recall most of the formula, and with little experimentation quickly succeeded in creating one of these devices myself._

_The procedure is actually quite simple: by altering key lines of text but slightly, a normal linking book's connection can be partially severed, such that anyone who attempts to use the book will be permanently trapped in the dark void of the link – that is, unless someone else uses the book, at which point that person would become trapped, and the first person displaced back into the world._

_The technique can be applied to books that have already been written, changes to the original text being so slight that anyone who is unfamiliar with the code will be unable to detect them._

_If indeed my father has not changed, what better bait could there be, than a book that appeared to be a link back here to D'ni?_

* * *

"So..." Rachel was digesting this, "if one of us uses the book, then they'll be trapped, but if Gehn uses the book after them, then they'll be freed and Gehn will be trapped?"

"Exactly, Rach. That's how we can convince Gehn to use the book. One of us – and only one of us – has to take it to him and use it if he asks us to. The other three must not – under any circumstances – go to Gehn's world until that person comes back and gives the all-clear. And now, all that remains is to decide who will take the book and work out how to work these domes."

"I'll take the book," said Rachel.

"No, Rach, you will not take the book. Gehn knows you, he's had you locked up, he's liable to shoot you if you show up on his world. I'll take it."

"Don't you think it would be better if I did?" asked Maddy. "He doesn't know me at all."

"He doesn't know me either," countered Jordan.

This went on for a while, until Brittany (who was not part of the argument) stood up and whipped the green book out of Jordan's hand.

"_I'll_ take it," she said, in a voice that quite clearly said that any argument would be cut down mercilessly.

Jordan, Rachel and Maddy got the message.

* * *

The door of the temple stood open as the tram approached. Gehn stood at the top of the stairs, hands on hips and looking very impressive and scary as the tram docked in the station.

The door of the tram opened and Grand Master Neil stumbled out, followed by another man and a woman.

"Well done, Grand Master Neil. It appears you can follow orders after all," Gehn said scathingly.

"He can, my lord. Good morning."

"It is not a good morning at all, Grand Master May! For one thing, the girl has escaped. For another, the Moiety are taunting me still more. And for one more, it is afternoon. You are supposed to be Grand Master of the Guild of Educators."

"Yes, my lord."

Gehn surveyed the woman with a quick look. "Grand Master Neil, may I point out to you that this is not Grand Master Meader? I asked you to bring him here."

"You did, my lord, but Grand Master Meader is very ill and could not come in to work today," replied Grand Master Neil. "His deputy is filling in for him... this is Acting Grand Master Feltham, my lord. I am told that she is one of the best Surveyors that we have ever seen."

"Is she, now?" Gehn studied her for a minute longer, then smiled – the first time he had done so all day. "Well, we need a good Surveyor right about now. All right, Grand Master May and Acting Grand Master Feltham... as you know full well, there are four strangers loose on Riven, sent here by my son. Deputy Grand Master Neil and the rest of the bunglers in the Maintainers' Guild -"

"Ah," Neil interrupted with a slight cough, "you said Deputy Grand Master, my lord?"

"Yes, I did, Deputy Grand Master Neil," replied Gehn with relish, "you have just been demoted. I am appointing Guild Master Tinen as Acting Grand Master in your place until such time as a full election can be held."

The former Grand Master Neil was stunned into silence, and thoroughly embarrassed. Gehn continued, a slight smile lighting his features, "As I was saying... Deputy Grand Master Neil and the rest of the bunglers in the Maintainers' Guild have not been able to do anything about the strangers, so I am enlisting the Educators and the Surveyors to help them. You two will gather all your available men and meet in the Great Hall in the... I think we'd better make it the Educators' Guild, Grand Master May? You have the largest hall, I believe?"

"Yes, of course, my lord," replied Grand Master May. "I shall arrange it."

"Good. You are dismissed, Grand Master May." May bowed to Gehn, turned on his heel and boarded the tram to return to Jungle Island.

"Now, Acting Grand Master Feltham... the Surveyors will have more of a task in this than just extra manpower. In the standard training for all Surveyors, I believe you are trained to follow tracks?"

"Yes, we are, my lord," replied Acting Grand Master Feltham. "A few amongst us studied a Master's degree in tracking."

"We will need all of those Guild Masters for this operation, then."

"They are not all Guild Masters, my lord."

"If this goes well, they will be Guild Masters by the end of the operation. Anyway, we will need your Surveyors to team up with the Educators and the Maintainers to track down the strangers. Can they do that?"

"Oh, yes, my lord," replied Feltham. "They love a chance to test out their tracking skills."

"Good. I will need you to observe the proceedings with me, so if you could enlist your deputy to keep them in line... you do have a deputy, don't you?"

"Yes, my lord, I appointed Guild Master Watson as my deputy."

"An excellent choice. All right, then, you are dismissed, Acting Grand Master Feltham." Feltham bowed to Gehn and disappeared off towards the Jungle Island. "And you, Deputy Grand Master Neil, will come with me back to the Maintainers' Guild Hall. With this much manpower, there's nowhere for the strangers to hide..."


	11. Rope

**10 – Rope**

"Acting Grand Master, my lord?"

"Yes," replied Gehn.

"But, my lord," said Tinen with some trepidation, "I don't know what's expected of me..."

"That is easily fixed," replied Gehn, and turned around to shout to the other Maintainers. "Deputy Grand Master Lewis! Over here, if you will."

An elderly man came hurrying up to them. "Yes, my lord?"

"Kindly arrange for all your men to go immediately over to the Educators' Guild Hall and meet Grand Master May and Acting Grand Master Feltham there. They will fill you in on what is going on. Please inform them that I will be there shortly to give further instructions, and in the meantime I would like them to fill in the guildsmen on what is going on."

"Yes, my lord." Deputy Grand Master Lewis turned and began shouting orders to the crowd, as Gehn turned back to address Acting Grand Master Tinen and Deputy Grand Master Neil.

"Acting Grand Master Tinen, if you would be so kind as to take a seat in your office, I will be with you shortly to give you a briefing of your duties." Tinen scurried off. "Deputy Grand Master Neil, I would like you to firstly go to Grand Master Devery of the Inkmakers and Grand Master McPherson of the Books, both of whom you will find in the boardroom at the Books' Guild Hall, and inform them of what is going on. Once you have done that, go and join Deputy Grand Master Lewis in the Educators' Guild Hall." Neil strode off in the direction of the Book's Guild Hall, muttering darkly under his breath, as Gehn made his way upstairs to the Grand Master's office.

* * *

Rachel, Jordan, Maddy and Brittany were settled in a largish crevice in the rock surrounding the Crater Lake. They had spent the day quietly discussing how they were going to reach Gehn's world, and they thought they had it just about sorted out. They had reasoned that by now, Jungle Island would be crawling with guards, so they had to avoid it at all costs. Dome Island would also not be very safe, but they had no choice but to go there, since they believed that the large dome was the key to getting to Gehn's world. The safest of the islands would be this one, Crater Island, because although the bookmaking took place here, there didn't appear to be much in the way of clues to access Gehn's world.

"So let's go over it once more," whispered Rachel, as the stars began to wink into position in the sky. "Tomorrow Jordan and Maddy will go over to the Dome Island and try to figure out how to work the big dome, and also do their best not to get captured. Brittany and I will stay here and try to work out how to open the smaller dome."

"Right now, however," whispered Brittany, "we should all get some sleep."

Half and hour later, Brittany and Maddy were sound asleep, but Jordan and Rachel were still awake. Rachel's brain was still spinning with everything that had happened today. Jordan put his hand on her shoulder.

"Do you think this is really going to work?" asked Rachel, a note of despair in her voice.

"I don't know," replied Jordan, after a moment's hesitation, "but it's the only plan we've got."

"Are we going to survive?"

Jordan paused, considering this question. "I hope so, Rach," he replied eventually. "I hope so."

They fell into silence for a minute, before Rachel remembered something else. "And Jordan... thank you for remembering my birthday."

Jordan smiled. "I couldn't possibly forget." He dug around in the shadows of the crevice and extracted an armful of bottles and glasses. "I found these in Gehn's lab... thought you might be interested. Should we wake the others up?"

Rachel took a glass in one hand whilst her other hand moved from Jordan's hand to his thigh. "Don't," she replied, "it'll be much more fun by ourselves..."

* * *

The Educators' Guild Hall was as full as it had been for as long as Grand Master May could remember, and the noise from the three combined guilds was almost deafening. He had been trying desperately for the last half an hour to calm them down, and even with the help of Acting Grand Master Feltham and Deputy Grand Master Lewis, he was not having any success.

The side door of the hall opened silently and Gehn sidled in unnoticed by anyone. He made his way surreptitiously through the crowd and up onto the stage behind the three Grand Masters, who were still trying to quiet the crowd down. Gehn placed his gun down against the wall, then cupped his hands around his mouth.

"I will have silence!" he roared, and the noise vanished in an instant. Grand Master May and Acting Grand Master Feltham moved back to greet him, supporting Deputy Grand Master Lewis between them, who had almost had a heart attack when Gehn had shouted.

"Now hear me," continued Gehn in a more normal volume, if anything about Gehn could be said to be normal. "I want the four strangers caught, and I want them caught quickly. The Maintainers' Guild has so far been unable to apprehend them, so I am enlisting the help of the Educators and the Surveyors. Educators, you shall act as extra manpower for the Maintainers. Surveyors, your job is not only to be extra men, but also to use your tracking skills to try to flush out the strangers. They were last known to be at the prison cell."

Before Gehn could continue, the main doors at the far end of the hall flew open with a ringing crash of stone on marble, and Grand Master Devery stormed in, looking furious. Behind her, Deputy Grand Master Neil hurried into the hall with Grand Master McPherson, both looking rather nervous. The crowd parted for the furious Grand Master Devery as she stormed towards the stage, with Neil and McPherson hurrying along in her wake.

"My lord," demanded Devery as soon as she had climbed the stairs, "just what do you think you are doing?"

"I am finding the four strangers and apprehending them, Grand Master Devery," replied Gehn, perfectly calmly.

Devery glared at Gehn with a stare that made the three Grand Masters standing behind him recoil, but Gehn met her eyes calmly.

"And why have you not asked the Inkmakers to assist?"

"Because," replied Gehn, still perfectly calmly, "the Inkmakers are not trained to deal with tracking down fugitives."

"Then why are the Educators in on this? They are not trained to deal with fugitives either!"

"On the contrary," replied Gehn, a slight smile lighting his features, "it is standard training. You cannot be an Educator without having the odd child run off on you."

The hall exploded with laughter, which Gehn allowed to continue for exactly five seconds before raising his hand to silence the guildsmen.

"Plus, the Inkmakers have other important work to do," added Gehn.

"I demand that the Inkmakers be allowed to assist," said Devery confidently. The entire hall held its breath as Gehn's eyes flashed... they knew that Gehn would not allow that to pass.

"You _demand_, do you? And who are you to demand something of me, Devery?"

Devery realised too late that she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. "Last time I checked," she replied, the fire that had edged her words dying away fast, "I was Grand Master of the Guild of Inkmakers."

"Last time you checked," replied Gehn, smiling. "However, Guild Master Devery, even if you still were Grand Master, you would not be able to demand anything of me."

Behind Devery, Deputy Grand Master Neil smiled at Gehn. Gehn raised an eyebrow in reply.

"You just called me Guild Master, my lord," said Devery uncertainly.

"Indeed I did, Guild Master Devery," replied Gehn, who was relishing every syllable. "You have just been demoted."

"But you can't do that!"

"As Deputy Grand Master Neil can testify, I most certainly can," replied Gehn, the merest hint of an irritated hiss making its way into his voice. "I'm sure that Guild Master Stevens will do an excellent job as Acting Grand Master in your place, at least until a full election can be held."

"Guild Master Stevens! But -"

"That is enough, Guild Master Devery!" Gehn had finally lost patience with these constant arguments. "If you value your head and would prefer it not to be fed to the wahrks, I suggest you are silent!" Guild Master Devery finally came to a stop. "That is better. Deputy Grand Master Neil, would you be so kind as to escort Guild Master Devery back to the Inkmakers' Guild Hall, locate Guild Master Stevens – Acting Grand Master Stevens, rather – and inform him of these developments?" Neil bowed to Gehn, and he and Devery left the hall. At this point, Gehn noticed Grand Master McPherson for the first time. "Ah, Grand Master McPherson! I trust you are not going to make further difficulties for me?"

"Indeed not, my lord," replied McPherson, "I fully understand why you did not wish to include the Books' Guild in this. I do, however, bring good news."

"Oh, excellent," replied Gehn, clapping his hands together. "I could use some good news right now."

McPherson drew himself up straight. "I am pleased to report, my lord, that my guild has finally perfected the formula for creating the blank books. We discovered today what the bug in the books was."

The hall exploded with applause, led by Gehn, who exclaimed over the noise, "That is excellent, Grand Master! Excellent news! Might I enquire as to what the bug in the books was?"

"Ah, well, my lord... there were beetles hiding in the wood. They were getting mashed up in the chipper and contaminating the paper."

"So you located the bug in the most literal sense of the phrase," replied Gehn, causing more laughter, which was stifled after five seconds. "Well done, Grand Master McPherson. Keep up the good work. I shall need a blank book as soon as possible so I can finalise the new Age I am writing for everyone."

"Yes, my lord." McPherson extracted a book from his satchel and handed it to Gehn. "There you are, my lord."

Gehn was impressed. "That's what I call service," he commented. "Would you kindly follow your two colleagues over to the Inkmakers' Guild Hall and request a progress report on the new ink formula?"

"Of course, my lord." Grand Master McPherson bowed to Gehn and hurried out of the hall, closing the main doors behind him. Gehn turned back to the audience.

"Now, returning to the original point of this meeting... Since the Maintainers' Guild is approximately twice the size of both the Educators' Guild and the Surveyors' Guild, this is what I would like to happen: you will divide yourselves up into groups of four. Each group will contain two Maintainers, one Educator and one Surveyor. Grand Master May and Acting Grand Master Feltham, once they have done that, I would like half the groups to cover this island from top to toe. Half of what remains – that is, a quarter of the total – should cover Plateau Island -"

"Plateau Island, my lord? But -"

"Please do not argue, Acting Grand Master Feltham, I have had enough of people arguing with me. A quarter of the total groups will cover Plateau Island, I say, to protect the information that lies hidden therein. Finally, half of what remains – that is, an eighth of the total – will cover Dome Island, and the final eighth will cover Crater Island. Now divide up, please."

As the guildsmen began to divide themselves up, Gehn turned to the three Grand Masters still on the stage. "Grand Master May and Acting Grand Master Feltham... you and Acting Grand Master Tinen of the Maintainers will oversee this operation. I must return to my Age and continue work on the sanctuary for everyone. Kindly do not come and see me unless the strangers are captured." The two Grand Masters bowed. "Deputy Grand Master Lewis, if you feel up to it, I would like you to accompany me back to Dome Island, where I shall return to my Age, then I would like you to deactivate the generator. After you have done that, kindly return to the Maintainers' Guild Hall and send Acting Grand Master Tinen over here. Tell him that Grand Masters May and Feltham will explain what is going on. Got all that?" Lewis nodded. "Then come along. Good luck, you two," Gehn added to May and Feltham, who bowed again as Gehn left the hall through the side door.

* * *

Brittany awoke first in the morning to the sound of muttered voices. She crept over to the mouth of the crevice and peered out cautiously, then caught her breath.

Four men were sitting not too far from her, all with their backs to the crevice, watching the log chipper intently. They were muttering to themselves quietly in Rivenese. Brittany caught a little of what they were saying.

"Tinen said not to kill them..."

"We're not armed anyway, how could we?"

Brittany smiled to herself, bent down silently and picked up two rocks. Lifting the larger one in her stronger left hand, she took careful aim and threw it at the back of one man's head. It didn't land exactly on target, but this was a blessing in disguise, as it successfully knocked out both him and the man next to him. Before either of the other men could react, Brittany had hurled the second rock at one of them and knocked him out as well. By the time the fourth man had even started to stand up, Brittany had jumped out of the crevice and pinned him to the ground.

"I suggest," she hissed in Rivenese, "that you cooperate with me, because it will be very painful for you if you do not."

"But Tinen said you couldn't speak Rivenese..." The guard was not having a good day already.

"The others can't; I can a little," replied Brittany. "Now, perhaps you could tell me what you are doing here?"

"Ahh... would you accept a small lie there?"

"No."

"If I tell you, I'll be as good as dead!"

"If you don't tell me, I'll kill you anyway," replied Brittany, "and I think that would be rather more painful."

The man swallowed. "All right then... After the Maintainers couldn't capture you, the Lord Gehn told the Surveyors and my guild – the Educators, that is – to help them out. There are groups of four all over the islands."

"How many more on this island?"

"Not many... maybe four."

"And four is not many, is it?" Brittany was rather enjoying this.

"Well, yes, when you consider that there's twenty groups on Jungle Island," replied the man.

"What about Dome Island?"

"Five."

"And Plateau Island?"

"Ten."

"And," Brittany paused briefly for dramatic effect before continuing, "how do we get past them?"

The man paused. "Ahh..."

"And no, I will not accept a small lie... or a big lie, for that matter."

"Are you sure? I can do an interesting lie for you, with -"

"No! How do we get past the guards?"

The man sighed. "You need to have uniforms... and there's a password."

"And what might that be?"

"I don't suppose it's worth asking whether you'd accept -"

"No, I would not."

"Very well then," the man muttered. "The password is 'sustify'."

"Is that even a word?"

"It is in Rivenese, but I'm not sure what it means."

"Fine."

There was a large yawn from behind them, and Maddy stepped out of the crevice in the rock. She saw the three unconscious men immediately, then saw Brittany with the conscious one.

"What have you got going here, Brittany?" she asked in English.

"Oh no, not another one," moaned the guard in Rivenese.

"You shut up," hissed Brittany in Rivenese, before switching to English. "I found these four outside when I woke up. Knocked those three out and got a bit of information out of this one. The entire Age is crawling with guards. Gehn's enlisted two of the other guilds to help the Maintainers catch us. However..." Brittany switched back to Rivenese and kicked the man in the side. "What's your name?"

"Guildsman Wood, of the Guild of Educators, miss."

"Thank you." She continued in English. "However, Guildsman Wood here has been kind enough to tell me how to get past them. I think we will need to change our plans. We should dress as this lot and move together, so we can look like a group of guards."

"Why can't we split into two groups of guards?" asked Maddy.

"Your brain doesn't function brilliantly at a quarter past five in the morning, does it? Firstly, all the other guards are in groups of four; secondly, one group of four is safer than two groups of two; thirdly, I'm the only one of us who can speak Rivenese." Brittany turned back to Guildsman Wood and continued in Rivenese. "Who are the other three?"

"That one there..." he pointed to the one closest to Maddy, "is Guildsman Duncan, Maintainers. That one," he pointed to the one closest to the crevice, "is Guild Master Jensen, Maintainers. And that one," he pointed to the last remaining one, "is Guildsman Hunter, Surveyors."

"There's only one of any standing in the group, then?" asked Brittany. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "So if I assume Guild Master Jensen's identity, at least enough to make me look a bit like her and perhaps sound a bit like her..."

"You do already sound a lot like her, miss," volunteered Wood, making Brittany realise she had been muttering in Rivenese without even realising.

"Do I look anything like her?"

"I don't know, I haven't seen your face yet."

"Fine." She switched to English. "Maddy, would you kindly wake up Jordan and ask him if we have any rope?"

Maddy poked her head back into the crevice and said something to Jordan, then extracted her head. "He says we don't. He sounds pretty groggy."

"Hung over, maybe? It was Rach's birthday yesterday, remember."

"I don't think that's all they did last night, somehow," Maddy replied with a grin.

"Leave it at that, Maddy. We probably don't want to know."

"You don't," called Jordan groggily from the crevice. "Don't ask."

"Cursing the drink-sex hangover, eh, Jordan?"

"Shut up, Mop."

"We've got no rope at all, Jordan?" cut in Brittany before things got violent.

"No rope."

Brittany considered this for a second. "Okay... Maddy, come here and hold the rather cooperative Guildsman whilst I search the others." Maddy came over and held Guildsman Wood whilst Brittany got up and searched the unconscious guards. In the satchel of Guild Master Jensen she found what she was looking for – a coil of rope and four gags, presumably meant for use if the guards had captured them, rather than the other way around. She extracted these rather useful items and went into the crevice. Jordan was sitting there awake, but Rachel was still asleep.

"Wake her up, will you?" Brittany went back over to Maddy and Wood. "Now, Guildsman, I would like you to stand up." Wood got to his feet, his hands still pinned behind his back by Maddy, as Jordan and Rachel emerged from the crevice.

"What -"

"I'll explain later, Rach. Jordan, come here." Jordan went over to them, and Brittany looked between him and Wood, muttering to herself. "Similar height... same complexion... hair slightly darker but still close..." She came to a decision. "Okay, Jordan, you will assume Guildsman Wood's identity. Guildsman Wood," she continued, switching to Rivenese in the blink of an eye, "kindly remove your jacket, shirt and trousers."

Wood stared at her. "But miss, we have only just met."

Brittany kicked him in the shins. "Shut up with the jokes and get on with it. Jordan..." (back to English) "...get your shirt and trousers off. You're turning into him." Jordan knew much better than to make a crude joke here.

"Right..." Brittany went over and examined the three unconscious guards. "Rach," she called, and Rachel came over. Brittany pointed at Guildsman Hunter.

"Same height, hair, eyes, complexion, everything," said Brittany. "Strip her down and turn yourself into her."

Brittany moved on to Guildsman Duncan, then she called Maddy over. "Similar height and eyes, but his complexion is a fair bit darker than yours..." She called to Rachel. "Rach, have you got any makeup?"

"No," came the reply, "but Guildsman Hunter does."

Rachel came over half dressed and gave Brittany a largish box containing all variety of makeup similar to that seen on Earth. "Right, Maddy, hold still." After a few minutes, Brittany had succeeded in making Maddy look more like Guildsman Duncan than Guildsman Duncan did. "You can take it from here, Maddy."

Brittany walked over to Guild Master Jensen. A similar height to herself, same eyes, slightly lighter hair, and very slightly darker complexion. Fine.

After a few minutes, all four of them turned around, dressed as the Rivenese guards. Guildsman Wood, who was restrained by Jordan holding onto his undershirt, looked at the four of them, resigned as he was to the strangers.

"Very good, miss. You do look very much like us."

"Excellent," replied Brittany in Rivenese, then returned to English. "Rach and Maddy, would you grab the rope from over there and tie these four up? I think we'd better gag them as well, actually... stop them shouting and attracting the other groups around here."

* * *

Once the guards were very securely tied to a large rock inside the crevice and had been gagged, Brittany addressed the others in a whisper.

"All right, guys, we're bound to meet other groups around here, but when we do, leave the talking to me, okay?"

The others nodded, and they set off across the crater and to the ladder leading up to the balcony. They were unhindered until they came to the door leading into Gehn's laboratory. Standing outside was a group of four guards, facing the path over to the golden dome. They turned around as they heard the ersatz guards approaching.

"Stop right there," said the frontmost guard, holding up a hand. "Where do you think you're going?"

"We are going to the Dome Island," replied Brittany in Rivenese.

"For any particular reason, or just because you don't like it down there much?"

"We have orders," replied Brittany. "Does that satisfy you – or rather, sustify you?"

The man frowned. "Orders, huh? Well, I'm an Educator, which means I'm trained to not ignore orders, so yes... that does sustify me, as you say. Go on."

He and the other three guards moved aside to let the four pass. As soon as they were into the small tunnel leading out to the bridge, Brittany hissed in English to the others, "First test passed, but I think that the guards over on Dome Island will be tougher... stay in character, guys. Remember, this time it's for real."


	12. Check

**11 – Check**

Brittany led the group into the golden dome. There was another group of four guards standing in their way as they made their way around the spindly catwalk, trusting Brittany's instincts and memory. She had told them in a hurried whisper as they had crossed the bridge that she thought she knew how to power the generator, so just trust her. First, however, they had to get to where they were going.

The guards were motionless as the four of them approached, until they were standing a mere foot apart from each other. The guard looked down at Brittany.

"Guild Master Jensen... always a pleasure," he growled. "What business do you have here?"

"Business on the upper level, Guild Master Bennett," replied Brittany, making a hurried scan of the man's uniform and fortunately spotting his identity card hanging from his belt. "We have been ordered to inspect the generator. I didn't ask why."

"They trained you well, Guild Master Jensen," replied the man. "Orders are not to be questioned, so I will let you through if you can tell me the password."

"Sustify, Guild Master Bennett."

"Well met." The man and the other three guards stood to one side to let the group through. Brittany paused and turned back to the guard.

"Is the bridge up, Guild Master Bennett?"

"I believe so, Guild Master Jensen."

"Thank you." Brittany turned off the round catwalk and exited the dome through the first door. The four of them walked around to the back of the Gate Room unhindered. There were no guards waiting near the Gate Room, or at least, not near this entrance. The four of them paused, and Brittany pointed at the long pathway that split the top of the golden dome in two.

"The controls are up there, I'm almost certain," she hissed. "The bridge across from the first entrance raises and lowers to allow access to it. We can access the upper level from the Gate Room if the bridge is up, which is why I asked him."

"Oh, is that what you said?" replied Rachel.

"Oh, of course, I forgot you can't understand..." Brittany turned to the Gate Room. There was no door aligned to this entrance, so she pressed the button. A door aligned with the entrance, but when Brittany poked her head into the room the other door had aligned with the steam pipe control entrance. She shook her head and pressed the button twice more, aligning the doors to this entrance and the main front entrance. She stepped boldly into the room, expecting a challenge from guards at the main Gate Room entrance, but there were none. She beckoned the others through the room, then pressed the button twice more to realign the doors. They hurried through the room again and up the raised bridge to the upper level of the dome. Surprisingly, there were no guards there either. The four of them approached the huge marble grid on the ground in the middle of the tunnel.

"We have to place certain marbles in certain locations on the grid, corresponding to the five smaller domes, which Gehn calls Fire Marble Domes. I've worked it all out... it was all on Plateau Island...

"Each dome, when we opened it, had a symbol that we used to open it, remember? Those symbols correspond to colours. The Dome Island dome used a circle with a dot in it."

"That's green, isn't it?" asked Rachel.

"Exactly, Rach," replied Brittany. "The Jungle Island dome used a sort of eye shape with a vertical line in the middle, like this." She pulled out her journal and showed them the drawings of the symbols. "That's red for Jungle Island. The Crater Island dome is a single vertical line, which is purple. The Plateau Island dome was harder to get, because the device to open it was crooked, but I think it was a single horizontal line, which is orange."

"What about the fifth island?" asked Maddy.

"Well... we don't know about that one, but there's only two marbles left, blue or yellow. We'll have to guess which one to use."

"And how do we know where to place them?" asked Jordan.

"Ah, well..." Brittany paused here. Fortunately for her, Rachel came to her rescue.

"Remember the floating building on the Totem Lake on Plateau Island? It was a sort of map room. When you pressed one of the island buttons on the balcony, you could view topographic maps of each island in there. I remember seeing the domes on the maps and thinking that it might help with this thing if I wrote down where they were. May I?" She extracted her journal from her pocket and flicked it open to a small grid she'd drawn. She stepped over to the grid on the ground and picked up the red marble.

"Red is Jungle Island?" The others nodded. "So it goes here." She placed it in the grid. "Green is Dome Island, and it goes here. Purple, Crater Island, here. Orange, Plateau Island, there." She paused. "I know where to place the marble for the fifth island, but which colour should I use?"

"We'll have to guess and check," replied Brittany. "Try the blue."

* * *

Grand Master May looked up across the table at Acting Grand Master Feltham. She was studying the position carefully.

"How is GM Meader?" asked May carefully.

"Not well, I'm afraid," replied Feltham. "He'll be off work for at least another week." She moved her knight and looked up at May.

"Not well, huh? My sympathies to him," said May as he, in turn, looked down at the position. "Any word from your guys yet? Any sign of the strangers?" He moved his queen and looked up as Feltham looked down again.

"No, nothing yet. DGM Lewis tells me that AGM Tinen is suffering from acute stress?" She moved her bishop. "Check."

"Yes, I'm afraid so. The Lord Gehn might have made a poor choice appointing him as AGM." He moved his knight.

"How is DGM Lewis coping as AGM in his place? He's too old for too much stress; I guess that's why the Lord Gehn didn't appoint him AGM after he sacked Neil." She castled.

"He's not doing too badly, but still, I'm forced to think that the Lord Gehn made a mistake in sacking Neil. Neither Tinen nor Lewis have been as good at running the Maintainers' Guild as him. I don't think anyone could do quite as well as him, except perhaps Guild Master Jensen. She is GM material, I think." He moved his queen's pawn.

"Oh yes, I quite agree. I really couldn't say how much stress would be involved in running the Maintainers' Guild... the Surveyors' Guild is half the size of the Maintainers' Guild, after all." She moved her knight.

"Indeed. The Maintainers' Guild is the largest of the guilds. Everyone wants to be a Maintainer. Nobody wants to be an Educator any more. We only had a dozen new intakes this year, you know!" He moved his knight.

"Really? Only a dozen? I thought we had it rough. We only took in twenty." She moved her rook. "Check."

"Oh, even a dozen is good compared to poor GM McPherson over in the Books' Guild. He only took on three this year." He moved his bishop.

"And still, the Books' Guild is the most efficient of all of us. The Lord Gehn told me that he wished the Maintainers were as efficient as the Books." She moved her queen's bishop's pawn.

"Ah, we all wish the Maintainers were as efficient as the Books. But now that Neil lost the top job, they're only going to get worse unless Jensen runs for the top job. I think she will, though. She's got a lot of support. If she runs she'll probably win." He moved his king.

"Neil got off lightly, though. The Lord Gehn sacked him in front of you and me, but what about Devery? He sacked her in front of three whole guilds, and GM McPherson." She moved her knight.

"And she got demoted further than Neil did. And a death threat thrown in as well! But it was no secret that the Lord Gehn never liked her. I think he was just waiting for an excuse to sack her." He moved his bishop.

"The Inkmakers' Guild will only get better now, though. I don't know how she ever got the top job." She moved her queen's rook's pawn.

"It's rumoured that she bought a lot of votes. Now that she's got the sack people might come clean and tell us if she bribed them. Do you think AGM Stevens will clean them up?" He moved his knight. "Check."

"Stevens? Probably. He can't be any worse. I think DGM Needham might have been a better choice, though. He might get the top job when they go to vote." She captured his knight with her queen.

"If he runs. He's getting on in years, and cleaning up the Inkmakers will take a lot of work. Can't be any worse than the Maintainers, though. You fell for that good and proper, by the way," he added, as he captured her queen with his bishop.

"No, I'm afraid you did," replied Feltham as she moved her rook. "Checkmate."

* * *

The generator was surprisingly quiet once it was running. Brittany led the way back down the stairs and through the Gate Room back to Guild Master Bennett's group of guards. Brittany held her breath as they approached the guards, but they did not appear to have noticed that the generator was now on.

"Returning now, Guild Master Jensen? Completed your inspection?"

"Yes, thank you, Guild Master Bennett. We must hurry back now... sustify."

The guards parted and the four of them strode past and down the drawbridge leading back to Crater Island.

"That went well," hissed Maddy.

"It's not over yet," replied Brittany. The four of them passed the guards outside Gehn's lab and climbed back down the ladder, following Brittany back to the crevice in the rock where they had spent the night. Brittany checked that the four guards were still tied up securely in there before reaching in and grabbing her clothes.

"Come on," she hissed, and the four of them returned to the ladder. They scaled it quickly, but this time went the other way down the stairs inside the cavern, which deposited them at the undergroud Fire Marble Dome. It was closed and spinning at high speed. Brittany closed the door quietly behind her.

"I don't think we'll be disturbed," she hissed. "Now, I'm going to get changed, stop this dome and hope that everything works... including our plan." She darted sideways into the small side passage where the device to stop the dome sat. After a minute the other three heard a small click, and then the dome slowly spun to a stop and flipped open. Inside it looked exactly like a smaller version of the large dome on Dome Island.

Brittany stepped out of the side tunnel, now looking like herself instead of Guild Master Jensen. "Jordan... the book, if you would?"

Jordan extracted the dark green prison book from Guildsman Wood's coat, where he had stowed it, and handed it to Brittany. "There's a code to open the dome, Brittany... I have it written down here." He tore the back page out of his journal and handed it to Brittany. "Good luck."

"I'll need it," replied Brittany. She stepped into the dome, glanced at the piece of paper that Jordan had given her, set the sliders to match the code and pressed the button. The outer shell of the dome swung back into place over the top of her as the golden cover rotated away out of sight. As the dome spun up to speed outside, the pedestal in the centre rose up slightly and a dim light came on above it, illuminating the book sitting innocently on top of the pedestal.

Brittany opened the book. For a split second, the panel on the back right page showed only blackness, but then a picture of a largish office flickered into view in the panel.

Judgement day, thought Brittany, and lowered her hand onto the page.


	13. Checkmate

**12 – Checkmate**

The first thing Brittany saw as her vision cleared were the heavy iron bars right in front of her face. She turned around carefully, surveying the entire building from the small round cage that she stood in at the centre of the room.

Directly in front of her when she linked in had been a busy but neat desk. A small cushioned stool sat in front of it and in the centre of the desk was a plain leather-bound book. This, Brittany realised, must be the sanctuary that Gehn was writing – or had written – for the islanders.

To the left of the desk was a large heavy door. It was closed tightly, and for good reason – the terrain outside appeared to be highly hostile. The windows didn't reveal much from where Brittany was standing, but she did see what looked like colossal spires of rock stretching up from the sea.

Left of that again was a wider window, and on the windowsill was a large switch. Exactly what it did was a mystery to Brittany, but it was out of reach anyway. Closer at hand, however, was a small button on the side of the cage bearing the now familiar pentagonal crest of Gehn. Not knowing exactly what this would do, Brittany resolved to leave pressing this until there were no other options.

Left of this was a ladder leading down into a small manhole in the floor. Gehn's private quarters, Brittany guessed.

Finally, on the fifth wall of the room was a large stove-like device. It was switched off, and apart from the regular functions of a stove Brittany could see no obvious purpose for it.

Surrounding the cage, however, within easy reach, were five pedestals, each bearing a book on it. Each book bore an ornate D'ni number five on it, and below that was a pattern of squares signifying one of the islands of Riven. The large block of squares for Jungle Island, the four in a square for Crater Island, the four in an L-shape for Plateau Island, the five for Temple Island and a single square for the mysterious fifth island. Brittany reached out and opened the book bearing the single square, but the panel on the last page was blank. These books, she realised, needed power just like the books on Riven did.

Seeing no further course of action, Brittany turned back to the button on the cage and pressed it. It lit up at her touch, but nothing else appeared to happen until Brittany glimpsed movement outside through one of the windows. A tall, grey-haired but still strong and regal-looking man was climbing the rocks and approaching the door. As he pushed it open, a rush of hot wind flew in, but it dissipated as soon as he closed the door. He paused as he saw Brittany in the cage, and he raised a gloved hand and removed his goggles. There was something like surprise on the man's face briefly, but then he rearranged his features into something rather more nonchalant and turned to walk over to the desk.

"I apologise for the cage," he said, and his voice sounded as energetic as he looked. "I'm afraid that this situation has often required of me a more primitive code of conduct than I might otherwise have chosen." He paused and walked closer to the cage after having removed his gloves and placed them on the table, after leaning his cane against the desk. "I am Gehn. I presume you've heard of me."

Brittany nodded silently in response, but Gehn did not appear to be paying any attention.

"Yes... well, you've probably acquired some false information of who I am now. Not that my son would have lied to you about me," he added hastily. "No, not Atrus; it's just that... well, I expect he still believes me to be the depraved father I once was. Yes... I even tried to kill him once. God, if I had accomplished that, who knows what I would have become? A great father indeed, who tries to murder his own son. That was thirty years ago." He paused, staring off into the distance. "Thirty years... thirty lifetimes, what does it matter? No sentence could be too harsh for the man I was." He paused again, and looked Brittany directly in the eyes for the first time. He shared, she noted, Atrus' pale blue eyes. "But I have changed."

He maintained eye contact with Brittany for a second longer, then dropped his gaze and turned to move back to the desk. "To be sure, the deeds of my past can never be completely atoned for," he continued, "but my mission was an honourable one..." He paused, picked up his pipe and lit it quickly. He drew on it deeply and exhaled, sending a puff of smoke and an intoxicating smell into the air, before shaking his head and slumping his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," he continued, not looking at Brittany but clearly addressing her, "this is all a bit awkward, I..." He paused and gathered his thoughts quickly. "It's been a long time since I tried to persuade anyone of my intentions; most of the people here have already made up their minds about me one way or another." Again, he lifted his pale blue gaze to meet Brittany's eyes. "I myself do not trust the words of most men, so I don't expect you to believe me. In the end, though, you may discover that I do have more than mere words to offer." He lowered his eyes and drew on his pipe again.

"Atrus' choice of punishment has been hard on the people of Riven, and many have suffered because of it. The island has been steadily decaying for years, but according to my most recent measurements, it appears that the Fifth Age has entered its final days." Once again, he met Brittany's eyes, and his tone changed to reflect the seriousness of what he was saying. "Unless the villagers can be relocated soon, the island will collapse entirely and everyone will perish." He turned and walked back to the desk. "It's taken me a long time to do it, but it seems that finally I'll be able to make some amends to my past transgressions, especially in -"

Gehn faltered, and Brittany noticed. He had obviously not been meaning to say that, but let it slip accidentally.

"Well," he continued in a slightly guilty voice, "I'm afraid I've had some... trouble... with Catherine. And the Moiety." He looked up at Brittany again. "In every society there will always be a small percentage of the population with rebellious tendencies. Before Catherine appeared, the Moiety, as they call themselves, had been relatively harmless. I mean," his tone changed from guilt to something bordering between desperation and self-defence, "the natives here are a fairly violent people by nature! But I'd almost come to accept their presence – the Moiety, that is," he added. "It seemed inevitable under the circumstances.

"Upon Catherine's return, however, their violence intensified considerably. It seems she's become some sort of..." he searched for the phrase, "religious saviour to them. As far as I can tell she's come to believe this herself. So I've had no alternative." Gehn's tone had changed considerably now – he was defending his actions. "I had to separate her from her people! I must admit, though, my concerns were not entirely for her safety alone. The actions of Catherine and the Moiety have put my own life at risk on numerous occasions! Consequently the lives of all the people here!" Once again, his tone changed, and he looked Brittany squarely in the eye. "Therefore, I must ask you to refrain from any attempt to free her. Although," and his serious tone disappeared, "I'm sure Atrus desires it. Indeed... he must desire it with all his heart. But he is completely unaware of her recent state!"

Gehn had been pacing as he said this, and had ended up in front of the stove. For the first time, Brittany saw fit to break her silence.

"Gehn... might I ask why you are being so civil towards me when you've been trying to capture or kill us for the past..." she looked at her watch, "week now?"

Simple, thought Gehn, I need to trick you, lull you into a false sense of security. Simple minds are so easy to manipulate with a few well-placed words and a nice smile. If I can just gain your trust, I might be home free.

"I decided that there were better methods than all that to convince people."

That seemed to jog his memory. "Oh yes... which brings me to the point of all this... the linking book you brought with you. You're very fortunate to have recovered it. If I may?" He extended his free hand through the bars and relieved Brittany of the dark green book. "Thank you." He placed his pipe down on the stove and flicked the book open to the last page, examining the panel that glowed there. He frowned down at it, and Brittany saw the ill-concealed look of temptation that flickered over his face. He frowned and shook his head, then began to page through the book, examining the D'ni script on the pages. His expression didn't flicker as he closed the book, then returned to the linking panel on the back page. The temptation that filled him as he looked down at the panel surged and temporarily took control of his left hand, raising it up over the panel. A split second before his hand made contact with the panel, however, he stopped, closed the book and turned to Brittany.

"Tell me... why did you give this up to me without a struggle?"

Because, thought Brittany, you're a lying cad who deserves to be imprisoned in the deceptive pages of that book. You think your soft words and nice smiles will waver my sight... well, no such luck, my friend.

"That's simple, Gehn. I'm in the cage, and you're out there with the gun."

"Of course, yes..." muttered Gehn. The temptation of the book was clouding his reason, but he forced his mind to remain open.

"Well... perhaps it would be best if you went through first." He held up the open book to Brittany, and she met his gaze. She didn't let the terror concealed deep in her gut break through as she took a step forward and laid her left hand on the small image on the page.

* * *

Deputy Grand Master Neil pushed the door of the Educators' Guild boardroom open to find Grand Master May and Acting Grand Master Feltham seated across the table from each other, silently engrossed in a game of chess. May looked up from behind the white pieces and smiled as Neil entered.

"Ah, Deputy Grand Master Neil! Any news?"

"None, Grand Master May," replied Neil, "however it is almost midday. You will want to change the guards soon."

"Good, good. Would you gather all the reserve groups into the Great Hall? We'll be down in ten minutes, after Acting Grand Master Feltham has wiped the board with me again."

Neil walked curiously over to the game and surveyed the board quickly. Indeed, Feltham's black pieces already had a large positional advantage over May's white pieces.

"A King's Indian opening, Acting Grand Master Feltham?"

"Yes," replied Feltham, looking up at Neil. "Do you play, Deputy Grand Master?"

"A little," replied Neil, "the job of Grand Master of the Guild of Maintainers leaves very little spare time."

"I can imagine," smiled Feltham. "We must have a game soon, now that you have a little less work to do... or has AGM Tinen's stress leave put more pressure back on you?"

"Very much so, Acting Grand Master, but I'm used to it."

"You don't sound too disappointed that the Lord Gehn sacked you any more," observed May.

"Oh, no, Grand Master, I'm rather enjoying being back in the Deputy's chair. I am getting on a bit, after all. I'm afraid young Tinen really isn't up to the Grand Master's job, though..." He sighed. "Ah well, no matter. I'll assemble the guards, Grand Master."

"Good man." Neil bowed and left the room. "Well, at least he's not too down about losing the top job."

"No," agreed Feltham. "Plus, like you said, he saw what happened to Devery... I guess he considered himself lucky."

"I suppose so." There was a pause before May continued. "Do you think we'll catch the strangers?"

"Honest opinion..." Feltham replied, "no. I think they're too good even for my guys. They're outnumbered hugely, sure, but still... sheer numbers don't always win. But," she added as an afterthought, "they do sometimes, such as now. Checkmate."

* * *

Jordan, Rachel and Maddy sat huddled in the side passage in the underground cavern containing the Crater Island Fire Marble Dome. None of them spoke as they sat listening to the whirring rumble of the dome spinning in the next room.

Anything could have happened, thought Rachel. Gehn might have taken the bait already, or he might have seen right through our ploy. The suspense is killing me.

Oh, I don't like this at all, thought Maddy. I'm used to having things happen quickly. It's been nearly an hour already. I don't like waiting.

Has she used the book? She said she would, thought Jordan, but she has to wait for Gehn to ask her to. Has he used the book? Calm down. Look for the best possible outcome.

So they lay silently in wait, listening for the sound they so desperately wanted to hear. But the dome continued its rumbling spinning without a thought, and so they waited some more.

* * *

Brittany blinked. She was in a very dark place. Not standing, but not really floating either. Just... suspended. On one side of her, a hazy picture of the D'ni cavern filled the darkness, but however much Brittany tried to make her way over there, she never made any progress.

Opposite the hazy image of D'ni was what appeared to be a window suspended in mid-air, so to speak. The window showed a picture of the cage on Gehn's Age. As Brittany watched, however, the image in the window swung around until it was Gehn that could be seen. Brittany caught her breath, but it was fairly obvious that he could not see her. This changing picture, Brittany realised, must be the "other side" of the linking panel. Even as she watched, however, the image went suddenly dark – Gehn had closed the book.

"My God," muttered Brittany, "is this what Sirrus and Achenar had to experience for who knows how long? Trapped in the blackness between a dark linking panel and whatever Age the books were designed to link to?"

They could have gone mad, she thought. Maybe they did.

* * *

It seemed like an eternity to Brittany, but in reality it was only about ten minutes later that Gehn reopened the book and looked carefully down at the panel. The panel was deceptive – the slowly shifting image of D'ni was still all he could see, and he was oblivious to the fact that Brittany was looking up at him, praying with every fibre of her being that he would take the bait.

Brittany watched Gehn from the confines of the linking panel as he pulled on his gloves and picked up his cane. He hesitated as he raised his left hand, considering once more what could happen, before he lowered his hand onto the panel.

A sudden jolt rocked Brittany's body, and the blackness that she saw dissolved silently into more blackness, which spun itself around her. A split second later the dull ringing of a link pierced the silence like a knife, and the blackness dissolved.

She was sitting at Gehn's desk – outside the round cage. The prison book lay innocently open in front of her.

And Gehn was gone.

Brittany looked down at the panel of the book, still masquerading as a link to D'ni, and smiled. She couldn't tell that Gehn was in there, but in there he must be, she thought.

"You were right, Gehn," she said to the linking panel. "Brute force isn't always the best way to gain someone's trust." She stood up and picked up the book. "Checkmate," she finished with a smile as she closed the book.

* * *

Jordan was no longer content to sit and wait for whatever would happen next. Instead, he had gotten up and was pacing back and forth across the narrow corridor. This was really starting to bug Rachel and Maddy.

"Jordan, will you sit down?" hissed Rachel. "You're making me nervous."

"Sorry, Rach," sighed Jordan as he sank back down onto the ground. "But we're -"

He broke off as the dome outside began to hum slightly as it slowed down. Leaping to his feet, he put his eye to the small hole in the wall as the outer shell of the dome flipped back on itself to reveal the golden interior. Someone who was quite obviously not Gehn stepped out of the dome.

Rachel and Maddy had also got to their feet. When Jordan gave them the thumbs-up, they darted down the corridor and out into the main cavern to greet Brittany, who was standing in front of the dome with the dark green book tucked under her arm. She was smiling widely.

"He bought it!" Brittany said to Jordan as he emerged from the tunnel as well. "We got him."

She passed him the green book and he smiled. "Oh, that's great! Now all we need to do is get to Catherine. Are we agreed that she is on the fifth island?"

Rachel and Maddy nodded. Brittany smiled. "Yes, I think so," she said, "and as an added bonus, we can get to the fifth island from Gehn's Age. He's got linking books to all five islands there."

"Does that mean we won't have to use those horrible trams any more?" Suddenly Rachel was sounding much more enthusiastic.

"Yes," smiled Brittany, "providing you can get to the domes. But that makes little difference. We are being pursued, and even though Gehn's gone, the guards don't know that. They're still going to capture us if we cross them."

"You're right, Brittany," put in Maddy. "We should go back to Gehn's Age and search there. We won't be disturbed."

"Good idea, Mop," replied Jordan. "Come on, let's go."


	14. Fissure

**13 – Fissure**

Without the cage to impede them, Brittany, Rachel, Maddy and Jordan (the latter three still dressed as guards) linked back into Gehn's Age and began to search the building. They were sure that somewhere in this room lay the key to freeing Catherine from her prison on the fifth island. Exactly where was a mystery, but the building wasn't exactly big, and Gehn wasn't exactly going to be along any time soon to disturb them, after all. Jordan and Rachel went over to Gehn's desk and combed it whilst Maddy and Brittany went down the ladder into his private quarters.

Rachel opened the book sitting on the desk. The panel on the last page was blank. She glanced back through the book. She didn't know what any of the script meant, or how to write a descriptive book, but she'd seen enough descriptive books to know that this wasn't finished, unless it was a very simple world... and, thought Rachel, Gehn wouldn't write simple worlds. Go for complicated and fancy to impress people, that's him.

Jordan had picked up Gehn's inkwell. "That looks like one of those beetles in the forest," commented Rachel.

"It is," replied Jordan. "I read in his journal that the Inkmakers' Guild uses those beetles to make the ink for writing the descriptive books. I think they crush them, then use the juices -"

"Too much information, Jordan," replied Rachel, who had turned a light shade of green.

* * *

Downstairs in Gehn's living quarters, Maddy had found an interesting imager which was similar to one that they had seen in the schoolroom on the Village Lake. When she turned the handle, a hologram of a woman appeared in the imager. When she spoke, she spoke in a language that Maddy could not comprehend. Brittany, holding a weathered red book in her hand, came over to examine the imager as well.

"She's speaking D'ni, I think," Brittany observed, "and the message is some sort of love message. The usual 'you're the only one for me' and all that. I think that," she pointed at the woman in the imager, "must be her." Brittany tapped the open book in her hand, and Maddy looked down at the entry.

* * *

_{Gehn's personal journal, 20.10.17}_

_It's late and I cannot sleep. I've lost so much in my life. My people, my father, my son, and you my wife – Keta, you were the only true kindness I have ever known. Watching you flicker there in the imager... I sometimes wonder if you were real. If I could restore your life with my pen, I would do so in an instant, and leave the rest of the world to their own wretched fate._

* * *

By the time Maddy had read this entry several times to make sure it did say what she thought it did, Jordan and Rachel had come down the ladder and were also reading the entry over Maddy's shoulder. The handwriting was shaky, unlike the other entries in the journal, and a fairly large teardrop stained the last word of the entry.

There was silence in the room as the flickering face in the imager died away. After a minute, Jordan voiced what all of them were thinking.

"He might have been human after all."

* * *

Rachel came hurrying back down the ladder into the lower bedroom. She had just been to the fifth island to see what they had to do to open the prison cell and release Catherine.

"There's a lock at the bottom of the elevator," she said, "that has three buttons on it that each make a different sound. We must have to enter a certain sequence onto them to open the cell."

"So," replied Jordan, "we're looking for something that makes a series of sounds?"

"Yeah," replied Rachel. "There were three sounds... a little noise like a bell, a clanking noise and a sort of buzz."

"Sounds like my alarm clock," said Maddy. Jordan and Rachel chuckled, but something dawned over Brittany's face.

"Why couldn't it be his alarm clock too?" she said, and went over to the small table next to the bed. She beckoned the other three over and pointed at a small silver ball on the table. "That looks like a sort of pocket watch."

"You don't think -" Rachel didn't think it was necessary to complete her sentence.

"Well, he's not going to leave something like that where anyone could get at it, is he?" Brittany pressed the button on top of the ball. It made a sudden series of sounds – a small ding, then a clank, then another ding, then a buzz, then another clank. After it had done that, it opened suddenly, revealing a rather complicated-looking cylindrical clock face. After a second, it closed again.

"Brittany," said Rachel with genuine admiration, "you are a genius."

"You're too kind, Rach," replied Brittany. She picked up the watch and put it in her pocket. "Now let's get out of here."

"Hold on..." Jordan said, as he noticed something sitting on one of the tables. It was covered in dust. He picked it up and rubbed his hand over it to clear the dust. What he uncovered made him smile.

"That's a pocket chess set, isn't it?" asked Rachel, as she saw what Jordan was holding.

"And a very nice one, too," replied Jordan, as he slid out the drawer containing the black army. "Look at the craftsmanship... this is hand made. You'll go a long way to find something as beautiful as this..." He paused, then slid the drawer closed again and pocketed the set. "Gehn won't be wanting it, after all," he said cheekily in response to the look Rachel gave him.

"I suppose you're right," she sighed. "Come on, let's go free Catherine and get off this Age!"

* * *

The sun flicked his eyes down to the house in the desert below him. The man in the black coat hadn't seen fit to leave yet, but then again the two small people who lived there and the last two visitors they had had hadn't come out of the house for six months. He turned his attention back to his rapidly approaching enemy on the horizon. She must be moving faster than usual this time around... she was looming on the horizon. A couple of days, he guessed, and she'd be here. But he was willing to bet that she still hadn't covered her old weakness. She never did.

He smiled at her and gave her a cheeky wave. Her eyes flashed, and he could see exactly what she was thinking. Just you wait, she was saying to herself. You're going to cop it when I get there. He smiled again, to himself this time. She'd never learn...

* * *

Gehn cursed to himself for falling into the trap that the strangers and Atrus had set for him. And all the time he thought he was the one trapping them!

Oh, what a fool I've been, he thought to himself. I thoroughly underestimated you this time, Atrus. And I underestimated the strangers. I've been tricked good and proper this time.

Being trapped on Riven wasn't so bad after a while, he thought. After all, there was room to move, and supplies... and people to rule. But here... here there was nothing. Nothing and no-one.

* * *

Rachel pointed at the three small tabs at the bottom of the caged elevator. "Each one of them makes one of the sounds. I think that if the right sequence is entered in, something must happen to allow access to the upper level."

The elevator was very roomy, quite different to the tower elevator on Myst, and the four of them fit in easily with room to spare. Brittany fished Gehn's watch out of her pocket as Rachel reached for the tabs.

Ding, clank, ding, buzz, clank, said the watch. Rachel pressed the tabs and the elevator recited the sounds. Then Rachel flicked the small lever above the tabs.

A faint whirring filled the air as the caged wall of the elevator spun around, closing off the exit and opening the elevator on the other side. Then, with no warning whatsoever, the elevator began to rise slowly up the shaft. It came to rest in a smallish room. A number of tables were scattered around, bearing bowls of fruit. Across from the elevator shaft was a small opening leading out onto a barred balcony. After a second, a tall woman in red and black peered around the corner. When she saw the four of them standing in the elevator, she crept across the room and joined them in the elevator, gripping the handle hanging from the roof and pulling down on it sharply. The elevator began its descent as Catherine turned to the four strangers.

"We have to move quickly," she said in a rushed whisper. "Gehn's people may already know what's happening. Once we're back with the Moiety we'll have time to regroup." Catherine paused. "Can I see the book?"

Jordan pulled the green book out from inside his jacket – or rather, Guildsman Wood's jacket – and passed it to Catherine. She opened it carefully to the last page and examined the panel that glowed innocently there. She smiled, almost in disbelief. "You did it," she murmured. "We're all free... you captured Gehn!" She paused. "But there's still his followers. I'm not sure what they'll do once they realise he's gone. We have to get the villagers to safety as soon as possible."

"All the islands are crawling with guards," said Rachel. "None of them realise Gehn's gone yet. At least, I don't think they do."

"I can handle the guards," replied Catherine. "You go back to the Dome Island and reopen the Fissure. I know it's risky," she added in response to the unanswered question from the four minds, "but it's the only way to signal Atrus. I'll try nto make it back there as soon as I can, but don't wait for me." She turned as the caged wall of the elevator rotated back into place and pulled the wires controlling the elevator free from the mechanism. "Don't forget, the porthole combination is in my journal. Good luck." She turned and dashed from the elevator, down towards the Fire Marble Dome, still clutching the dark green book.

* * *

The guards at the entrance to the golden dome turned as they heard hurried footsteps coming towards them. A tall woman in red and black was storming up the stairs of the catwalk towards them.

"Halt," said Guild Master Bennett, but his voice broke under her withering gaze.

"Kindly come with me," said the woman sharply. "Recall the doom that Gehn was always telling your people about? Well, you're going to be caught in the thick of it unless you come with me. Get the others, send messages to all the guards and gather everyone in the village square."

"But ma'am -"

"If you would rather not, then that is your problem," said the woman, and stalked off in the direction of the tram leading over to Jungle Island. Bennett looked at the others, who shrugged. The four of them hurried off after her, muttering to other guards that they passed on the way.

"Um, ma'am? How far away is this doom that is approaching?" asked one rather brave Surveyor.

"About five or ten minutes," replied the woman without stopping. "Now come quickly!"

* * *

As soon as Brittany linked in, she saw that the cage had been raised again. Her immediate thought was that this wasn't going to be comfortable, and indeed, when the three others linked in it was just like when they had first linked into Riven all over again, except even less comfortable.

"Somebody link out," mumbled Maddy as best she could with her face pressed against the bars of the cage.

"Right," replied Jordan, and groped for the nearest linking book, which happened to be for Plateau Island. When he opened it, however, the back page – containing the linking panel – had been torn from the book.

"She tore the page out!" Jordan said in a mumble. Maddy moaned and grabbed for the book nearest to her, which was for Jungle Island. The back page was missing from there as well. Brittany reached for the book closest to her, which was for Dome Island.

"This one's okay, for Dome Island," she said as best she could. "She doesn't want us mucking around." With no further conversation she linked out, leaving three in the cage. Rachel straightened up.

"Jordan," she said in a very flat voice, "as soon as we get home, would you please have a shower? I have just had my face in your back and it was not a very pleasant experience."

Jordan just smiled and linked to the Dome Island, a lead which Maddy and Rachel quickly followed.

* * *

When all four of them were standing just inside the golden dome, they looked up towards where Guild Master Bennett's group of guards had stood. There was no-one there now.

"Catherine must have come through here if she left all the other books unusable," reasoned Rachel. "Bennett must have gone with her."

"I pity him," muttered Maddy, but none of the others heard her. They were too busy heading off towards the telescope, since they now knew what it did.

* * *

Catherine stood on the raised platform in the middle of the village square and shouted so that all the villagers could hear her.

"The doom that Gehn predicted is now upon us. Riven will be brought to its knees, but I have a refuge for you." She held up the tattered descriptive book for the Moiety Age. "I must evacuate all of you to Tay, where the Moiety will be waiting for you."

"What about the Lord Gehn?" shouted one man.

"Gehn is gone," replied Catherine, and muttering broke out amongst the crowd. She raised her voice to cover it. "Take only what is vital and come to link through. Quickly, we don't have more than a few minutes."

She placed the book down on the table, opened it carefully to the last page and placed the translucent crystal over the dark panel, which immediately sprung to life, showing the image of the hive-like structure. Already some of the villagers were returning, carrying small bags. They may very well have had them packed already, thought Catherine, waiting for this doom.

It only took seven or eight minutes to evacuate all the villagers. Catherine looked up at the sky. It was still clear, but it wouldn't be for long. She turned and hurried down towards the lake.

* * *

Whilst all that was happening, Brittany opened the journal to the appropriate page, which she had seen earlier when trying to read Catherine's writing. It showed a diagram of the telescope. On one side of the page was a series of five D'ni numbers, and on the other was a diagram showing that there was a support in one of the rails that was designed to stop people doing exactly what they were about to do.

After she had pointed the support out to Rachel and it had been removed, Brittany looked at the five numbers and spoke to Jordan. "The combination is... two... four... one... four... three." Jordan pulled at the handle and the hatch opened with ease.

"Oh, hang on!" Rachel jumped to her feet and ran back up the stairs. They heard the rumbling of the Gate Room being rotated, and a minute later Rachel returned. "I remembered that there was a steam control in one of those caverns that appeared to power this. I turned it off; I thought it might be useful."

"Well remembered, Rach," said Jordan as he turned the handle on the telescope controls to point down and pressed the button. With the grinding and screeching of something that hadn't been used for a long time, the telescope descended about three or four inches. Another press dropped it again, another, and another, until the tip of the telescope was hovering just above the glass seal.

"Well, this is it," he said, and pressed the button for a fifth time. The telescope descended with a creak and the tip of the lens touched the glass. And just for a split second, everything stood still.

Crack.

The tiniest sound of shattering glass came from below the tip of the telescope, and the sound was echoed immediately as the ground shuddered violently. The four of them felt for the telescope for support, but even as their hands touched the cool metal of the cone-shaped device, there was a sudden tearing of steel and it was not there any more. It fell, down into the star-filled crevice that it had been suspended over for all these years. And as it fell, so did the sheets of metal that had covered the Fissure for so long, torn away by the fury of the downward pull, and not exactly helped by the huge dagger that had sat in the ground next to the link-in capsule suddenly toppling over and dropping down the crevice as well.

The rocks toppled from the cliffs, all headed for the released and hungry fury of the Star Fissure. And once they had fallen, there was a sudden calm, save for the howling of the wind. Behind the capsule, the stricken tracks of the tram still stood for long enough for the tram to creep its way back along them for one last time... but nobody saw that.

"This had to be enough of a signal," breathed Rachel.

As if on cue, the air inside the capsule shimmered as Atrus linked in. He stepped out of the capsule and surveyed the scene with a glance before running to join the four of them waiting by the Fissure.

"There isn't much time," he shouted over the howling wind. "Where's Catherine? Where's the book?"

"Catherine took the book," shouted Rachel in reply, "she went to evacuate the villagers, she said not to wait for her!"

Before Atrus could reply, a third voice cut in over the howling wind. "Atrus!" shouted Catherine as she ran out from behind the cliff. Atrus whirled around at the sound of his name, then ran over to Catherine. They embraced as the world around them continued to crumble to pieces.

The ground gave another almighty heave, and Catherine pulled back out of Atrus' embrace. He took the green prison book from her gently and opened it carefully as she came over to the group standing by the Fissure.

"The villagers are safely in the rebel Age," she shouted over the wind, then the wind died a little, allowing her to lower her voice as Atrus joined the group. "I thank you."

"As do I," said Atrus, smiling. "You've accomplished more than I could have hoped for. You've given me back... my life. The path home is now clear... for all of us."

The ground shuddered again, and Catherine turned to Atrus, a look of distress on her face. He extracted a red-covered book from his satchel and flipped it open to the last page, holding it open for her. With one last look at the four strangers, Catherine touched the panel of the book and disappeared. Atrus closed the book.

"This is where our paths must part," he said to the watching group. "Perhaps we'll meet again someday... you know where to find me." The ground shuddered again as he opened the book again and held it over the yawning Fissure. "He looked at them once more and smiled. "Goodbye, my friends."

He touched the book and linked out. For the briefest of moments, the book hung suspended in the air, then it dropped down into the mouth of the Fissure. The four of them rushed to the edge of the Fissure and watched the tiny red shape drift off down into the starry expanse below.

"Now what do we do?" shouted Maddy over the wind.

The ground heaved again, and an ominous cracking, crumbling sound came from below the four of them.

"Do we have a choice?" shouted Rachel in reply as the ground dropped out from beneath their feet, sending them tumbling down through the rock and out into the sea of stars below them...


	15. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

After everything that the past week or two had had in store for them, floating down through the silence of the Star Fissure was very relaxing. It was not cold, nor was it warm. All it was was silent, the myriads of stars smiling at the four of them as they drifted past.

Rachel awoke after who knows how long... maybe an hour, maybe a month... in time to see that the four of them had drifted into one of the large black cloud-like things that they had seen moving around the Fissure. As they drifted into the cloud, the stars still shone above them, but the blackness below was absolute, darker than the darkest link. And they were not drifting any more. No, they had sped up... now they were falling, and they could hear the wind whistling past their ears as the blackness suddenly writhed and reshaped itself... and then they landed. Rachel could feel the heat beating down on her back and the smooth texture of sand on her stomach. She sat up.

She and the others were sitting in the middle of the desert. But not just any desert, thought Rachel as she looked up at the huge, ominously dark shape of the old blasted volcano looming above them. A desert that we call...

"Home." She said the last word out loud, and the other three sat up. Around them bits of sheet metal were littering the sand, and embedded in the sand right next to them was the telescope.

Jordan got to his feet and looked up at the sun. It smiled down at him, welcoming him back, and he smiled back. He lowered his eyes to ground level. Not more than a hundred metres away was the house, looking a little dusty but still perfectly intact. He turned back to the others, who were also getting to their feet.

"Come on," he said to them with a very wide smile, "let's go inside."

* * *

The door of the house was open, and the house was silent as the four of them made their way through the loungeroom and pushed open the door of the kitchen. It was as they had left it... a little dusty, perhaps, but the Myst linking book still sat open on the table as the four of them looked down at the island dock reflected on the page.

"Ah," said a sudden voice, "I see you are all intact."

The four of them spun around. Standing in the doorway was a man clad in a long black coat, covering a black suit and tie. A black fedora was perched on his head.

"Good God, it's you!" exclaimed Jordan, Rachel, Maddy and Brittany at the same time.

The man smiled his benign smile. "Yes," he replied in his ever calm fashion, "it is me. Do close your mouths, you'll let the flies in."

The four of them were floundering for something intelligent to say. The man simply continued to smile. "I do rather seem to have this effect on people. I think it must be the coat."

Rachel was the first to come up with something to say. "So... it's over? We're home, Gehn's gone, Atrus and Catherine are together again, and the Rivenese people are free?"

"You are home, Gehn is gone," repeated the man, still smiling, "Atrus and Catherine are together again and the Rivenese people are free, yes. As for it being over... well, I'm not so sure. Let's just say... it's over for now. Anything else?" Silence. "Well, I mustn't outstay my welcome... although I don't think I received one to start with."

Rachel came back out of her trance. "Oh, wait!" The man paused, looking at her, and still smiling.

"Please, tell us... who are you?"

The man's smile widened. "You mean you don't know?" Rachel shook her head, as did the others. "Well, I'm sure you'll have tremendous fun trying to work it out."

He turned and strode from the room. Halfway across the loungeroom, he turned back to the four stunned people in the kitchen, and in one smooth movement raised his right arm, formed his thumb and forefinger into a cricle whilst leaving the others outstretched (rather like a number six), touched this to his forehead in a salute so that the thumb and forefinger encircled his eye, and said, "Be seeing you."

And then he was gone. By the time the four of them had made up their minds to follow him outside, the compound was empty.

As the four of them stood in shocked silence outside the house, a rumble of thunder interrupted the sun's thoughts. Here we go, he thought, she's here at last. Rain, thunder and lightning for a while, but she always uses up all her energy in one burst, then gets driven back easily.

Down below, the rain began pouring down relentlessly, with lightning flashing over the old volcano. Jordan looked up at the sky.

"Well, we did it. I don't know how, but we did it."

The four of them turned and went back inside, closing the door behind them. Jordan and Rachel went back into the kitchen, and Rachel picked up the book.

"What should we do with this?"

Jordan smiled at her. "We keep it, Rach. Remember what Atrus said to us." Rachel smiled back, and the words came floating back to her over the noise of the storm.

Perhaps we'll meet again someday...


End file.
